In reaching a century of appearances for Liverpool against his former club, Sunderland, on Sunday, midfielder Jordan Henderson continued a rather strange statistical quirk.

The Black Cats were also the opposition when the 23-year-old made his Reds debut, and the No.14 faced his ex-employers on the day he achieved 50 games for the club too.

Henderson revealed after the victory at the Stadium of Light that he had no idea about any of the above, but pledged to maintain his level of hard work to further increase that number.

He told Liverpoolfc.com: "I didn't know that. I didn't even know it was my 100th until one of the lads said before the game. It's good and hopefully I can get a lot more.

"I think I've improved quite a lot, under Kenny at first, and now Brendan has brought my game on again. Hopefully I can keep doing that, keep learning every day and keep getting better."

Bringing home three points from the north east allowed Liverpool to leap into second place in the Barclays Premier League, trailing early pace-setters Arsenal by just two points.

Henderson believes the win - secured through an opener from Daniel Sturridge and two Luis Suarez efforts - was fully deserved.

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"Everybody was delighted with the result," the Englishman added. "We played well at times and kept the ball a little bit better in the second half, especially towards the end.

"The most important thing was the three points; we've done that and we're very happy.

"We've been looking to try to play well for the full 90 minutes and not just the first 65 of games, which we have been doing.

"I felt we keep going today and deserved the goal at the end. I think we won pretty comfortably in the end."