Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has been at the heart of discussions with numerous players in recent days. Photo: PA

In another lifetime, when I was still playing, I came up against Jordan Henderson. The first time I played against him he was a young lad at Sunderland. I was at Aston Villa.

He struck me as just a hard-working, tough midfielder, and when he moved to Liverpool I think everyone wondered if he could take the place of Steven Gerrard, a real club legend.

In his early spell at Anfield, I don't think the fans were too bothered if he played or not. Now, he is the name those supporters all want to see on the team-sheet every week.

Over the last few seasons, Henderson has become the one player that they look to at Liverpool. He brings a drive and energy to the midfield and he has become the heart of this Liverpool team.

The team is full of good players and they function well any time someone is missing but the side is so much better when Henderson is in it, he adds that extra bit of steel, of desire.

Given where he came from, his early days at Sunderland in the Championship and that bit of a struggle early on at Liverpool, it's great to see the player he has become – a Champions League winner who will soon win a Premier League medal.

That's a sign of a player who has dedicated himself to his profession, who wanted to be a winner and who has got himself there.

I am sure there are times when he thought about leaving Liverpool, there were probably occasions when Liverpool thought about getting rid of him.

But he has proved himself to be more than worthy of being in that team.

Like most great teams, Liverpool have their star names and they also have people like Henderson, and James Milner too, who have a huge value that's not always appreciated.

Henderson's reward is not the number of Instagram followers he has, or how many shirts he sells. It's his trophies and his medals, that's what he lives for. His only goal is to be the best that he possibly can.

I don't think he is bothered with any plaudits outside of medals and winning games for his club.

He looks like someone who is on a mission all the time, every game means the world to him. He won't sit back and think 'I'll do my Instagram post today', he will just focus on training as hard as he can.

Every team needs a player like that. They can't all be superstars or fan favourites, you need people who do the dirty work, the players who you can rely on as a team-mate when your superstars don't turn up. Every successful team needs one of those and Liverpool have two, in Henderson and Milner.

The one I recall from my career was Sylvain Distin at Manchester City. He never got any international recognition, which is crazy, but he was such a vital part of that team.

He held that City team together a lot of the time, though the City team of my era didn't have the superstars that they have now.

Glenn Whelan and Keith Andrews were like that with the Ireland teams.

They don't make headlines, supporters don't get excited when they see their names on the teamsheet, but the players who play alongside them know how good they are, how important they are.

You'll always have people to score goals and take the glory, in the background are the ones who make the team tick.

I saw some of that in the young Milner, as he was at Aston Villa when I was there.

He came in every day, trained hard, and stayed back after training to get even better. All of his moves were under the radar before he ended up at Manchester City and moved onto another level where the top clubs started to take note - and ended up with the move to Liverpool.

Milner is one of those players you could play in any position on the park and he'd do a job for you. He never looked for praise, he did his job every week and he is also getting the rewards for that.

Good teams need a base. It's taken Liverpool time to build that, with a keeper (Alisson) and a defender (van Dijk) coming in over time, and adding someone like Andy Robertson for not a lot of money.

They score a lot of goals but their defensive record is superb, so Liverpool have all the glory with that brilliant front three but they also have that base.

They did have that spell where they couldn't keep a clean sheet, but now they are so strong, so mean at the back.

Salah and Mane get the goals and the headlines, but their success is built on the clean sheets at the back.

You win a league by getting 1-0 or 2-1 wins, where your defence digs you out of it. You need a strong work ethic.

I love watching Liverpool as they play with such style in attack, but look at their players when they lose the ball and see how hard they work to get it back.

It's that work ethic, embodied by the likes of Henderson, which has made them into European champions and, soon, champions of England.

Online Editors