JOrdan Henderson has insisted there will be no hangover from Liverpool’s Premier League and Champions League heartbreak last season.
Liverpool won the FA Cup and League Cup, but their hopes of an unprecedented quadruple was dashed within a week when they were clinched to the Premier League title by Manchester City before losing 1-0 to Real in the European Cup final Madrid.
But Henderson is confident that Liverpool will soon recover from the disappointment they have done in previous campaigns.
Liverpool lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid in 2018 but responded by winning the competition the following season and taking their first Premier League title in 2020, 12 months after narrowly missing City.
“There’s no need to – we’ve had disappointments in the past and we haven’t had hangovers, so we’ve always reacted appropriately,” said the Liverpool captain during the club’s pre-season tour of Bangkok. “We won two more trophies last year so it’s not all negative, there were still positives to take out.
“It’s been a fantastic season. Yes, it didn’t end the way we would have liked, but that’s football, that’s life, you go ahead and react in the right way and we just want to do it again.
“I wouldn’t say it made us more motivated, but you’re always motivated to win the biggest trophies. That’s why we play. We want to be successful. We want to win things and we won two last year. It didn’t end the way we would like in the other two, but we pushed our limits and that’s all you can ask for, so you move on, you take the positives and improve on the things we can improve. We’ve done that for a long time and now we just have to keep pushing.”
Liverpool this summer signed Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez for a club record £85million from Benfica and tied Mohamed Salah to a new contract but lost Sadio Mane to Bayern Munich. Henderson admits Mane’s departure is a “big blow” but believes they have the attacking options in Salah, Nunez, Luis Diaz, Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota to make up for the loss of the Senegal forward.
“Any team that loses Sadio will be a big blow because he is a world class player, for me one of the best strikers in the world, so it will always be hard to lose him,” said Henderson. “But at the same time – we have world-class players, especially at the forefront: Luis Diaz, who performed phenomenally well [last season]† Darwin comes in, Bobby comes back, so we have world class options. And things continue, change, hopefully we can adapt to that soon.
“Sadio would be a big miss for everyone. We are sad to see him leave but wish him all the best. For us you look at the forward line and it is still very strong. Bobby’s return is a big bonus for us, he was injured a lot last season, we certainly have plenty of options and hopefully we can produce like we’ve done in recent years.
“Darwin definitely gives us another option, in the way he plays. He’s really comfortable in his own skin.”