Henderson Is Doing An Incredible Job At Liverpool – Klopp

Jurgen Klopp has praised the leadership qualities of Virgil van Dijk, but stressed that Jordan Henderson will remain Liverpool captain for the foreseeable future.

“What we need at Liverpool are these kind of players who are leaders,” the Liverpool manager said. “Hendo and Virgil are leaders and that’s cool.

“But I am not half as much interested in the captaincy role as you all are. I’ve learned a lot in the last few days about the captaincy role in cricket, but I don’t really know what they’re talking about.

“Hendo is doing an incredible job here. If you ask whether I am thinking about giving the armband to someone else then no.

“Do you need more than one player who feels responsible for the whole group? Yes of course. We have them and Virgil is one of them.

“It’s nice for him that he can be the captain of Holland. But there won’t only be fantastic days for him in that role. Captaincy feels like a joy in the first moment and then from that moment on it’s only work.

“I don’t think if I asked in the dressing room ‘who wants to be captain next year’ that 28 arms would go up. It’s a job to do and it’s not better paid, you don’t get extra money for doing it. There are a lot more duties and not a lot more rights to be honest.”

“When Leo left, people were saying our defence had been weakened. He gave a lot in a defence which was tried and tested, but since then [Medhi] Benatia and [Daniele] Rugani have both grown to the role.

“There’s no ill feeling. [Dropping him for the game at] Porto was a decision taken for his good and for the good of the team.

“It was the right decision. These things happen in football. There’s no ill feeling on the part of either of us. I’ve got a great relationship with Leo. I didn’t expect him to leave.”