It is easy to see Liverpool’s place in the Champions League final on Saturday as a shot at redemption, a chance to make up for last year’s final disappointment and to gain tangible reward after a tremendous effort this season, though Jordan Henderson happens to take a longer-term view.
“No matter what the outcome of the final, we still need to push on and make progress next season,” the Liverpool captain says. “Even if we win it, it is still important to us all to win more trophies next season. Don’t get me wrong, this is a big game coming up, a massive opportunity, but whatever happens in Madrid, we’ll keep going and keep improving. This final isn’t all or nothing as far as the team’s progress is concerned. We are a young team, we know we can still get better.”
Liverpool were pipped to the Premier League title by Manchester City by a single point, after losing only once all season, and in Henderson’s eyes Pep Guardiola’s side are occupying the summit Jürgen Klopp and his players are striving to reach. Not just in terms of the league leadership, it is the trophy-winning habit that Liverpool would like to emulate. “City have won three trophies this year, and that’s where we want to be,” Henderson says bluntly. “We don’t want to be going for just one cup or title, we want to be winning more and more each year. If you look at City they don’t stop at one trophy, they are picking up two or three a season, and that’s something this club should really be doing. That’s the aim, anyway.”
Quite clearly there are not enough trophies to go round to allow two Premier League clubs to enjoy bagging two or three per season, though Henderson’s point is that Liverpool are not as far behind City as the medal count might suggest. What they need to do now is open their silverware account under Klopp and build on that platform.
“We can’t change what happened in the Premier League but the disappointment only lasted for a couple of days,” Henderson says. “When you have a game as big as this one coming up you can change your focus really quickly. The manager said after the loss in Kyiv last season that hopefully it would only be one of many finals over the next few years. That’s the way he talks and that’s the journey we are on. We’ve got a great team, a great togetherness, and the longer we remain together the stronger we will get. We have developed a spirit over the last few years that can only help us.”
So have Tottenham, it might be said, a fact Henderson is happy to acknowledge. “It’s no accident that they have reached the final, we have played them and we know how good they are,” he says. “I wasn’t even surprised when they beat Man City in the quarters. They didn’t make a lot of signings last summer but that can often help a team if it keeps a sense of unity and togetherness. Spurs have that in abundance, we know we are in for a tough game.”
Spurs may even have momentum too, given they have reached their first Champions League final in adverse circumstances while Klopp is trying to win for the first time in three attempts, though Henderson is unconcerned about having to meet another Premier League team.
“I don’t think that matters, it’s good for the Premier League that it’s an all-English final but it’s not important to the players,” he explains. “Spurs will be trying to beat us, just like any other team we could have met in the final. They will be trying to take our dreams away, any opponent would, and we’ve got to go out there and do the same.
“If we perform at our best we know we’ve got a good chance of winning. I don’t really care who is favourite and who isn’t, because we know we are up against a very, very good side. If they weren’t they wouldn’t be where they are. We just need to do our job on the night, anything else is irrelevant.”
While Liverpool’s status as favourites is based on their two league victories against Spurs this season and the confident manner in which they set about dismantling Barcelona’s 3-0 advantage at Anfield in the semi-final second leg, Henderson as captain was as surprised as everyone else to find himself on the bench for the first leg, even if he did end up playing most of the game. “I won’t lie, it was hard to take,” he says. “If it is Barcelona at the Nou Camp you want to play, but you also accept that the manager has difficult decisions to make.
“We had a lot of big games in a short space of time towards the end of the season and the most important thing was having the team prepared right. Some players missed out on Barcelona away, others missed Newcastle away or Barcelona at home, but I feel the whole squad reacted in the right way. Gini [Wijnaldum] came on in the second leg and scored two, for example, and that had a huge impact. You will have your disappointments in a football season, you can’t start every game, but it is up to the manager to decide and in our case if I’m honest I don’t think many people can argue.”