Jordan Henderson has shown Liverpool what it's missing with a vintage midfield display for Ajax as he looks to get his career back on track.
The former Reds captain topped the charts in a number of areas across the pitch on Thursday night as he helped the Dutch giants secure its passage into the Europa League play-off's with a 13-12 penalty shoot-out victory over Panathinaikos, with the tie level at 1-1 on aggregate after two legs.
The Amsterdam outfit will now take on Polish champions Jagiellonia Bialystok over two legs for a place in the newly formatted league phase, where the likes of Manchester United , Tottenham Hotspur , Porto and Roma lie in wait.
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But the 34-year-old appears to have rediscovered his best form for Ajax in the early part of this season, captaining his side in every single minute of its four Europa League qualifiers so far, resulting in three successive victories prior to Thursday night's clash with Panathinaikos at the Johan Cruyff Arena.
Despite the 1-0 defeat after extra-time prior to the penalty shoot-out victory, Henderson ranked first for most tackles won (2), most forward zone passes (43), most passes completed (92), most touches (116) and best pass accuracy (92%), according to Statman James on X (formerly Twitter).
On top of that, Henderson also converted his penalty in the shoot-out and could have scored again had he not given Ajax's final spot-kick to Anton Gaaei, with some players required to step up twice during the exhausting 13-12 victory.
"We asked if we could change the order and the referee agreed," Henderson told VI after the game. "Anton said: 'if they score, you can take your penalty, but if they miss, can I?' All credit to him. He's better at penalties than I am. Anton deserves it and has worked hard, a great boy. He wanted to have the chance to take this penalty and I thought it was important to do that."
Henderson endured a campaign of struggle in 2023-24 after leaving Anfield last summer. Six months after joining Steven Gerrard's Al-Ettifaq in Saudi Arabia for a reported $15.5million (£12m/€14.1m), Henderson had his contract mutually terminated .
He was then picked up by Ajax in January on a two-and-a-half-year contract and made 12 appearances in all competitions as the club finished a disappointing 5th in the Eredivisie, 35 points behind eventual champions PSV Eindhoven and 28 points behind Arne Slot's Feyenoord.
This season, however, Henderson appears to have upped his game and will be hoping to lead his side back to the top of the standings in the Eredivisie and the league phase of the Europa League. Ironically, his performances could perhaps be useful for Liverpool this season.
The Reds never replaced Henderson following last year's departure and are now crying out for a new defensive midfielder. Wataru Endo was initially bought in to plug the gap by Jurgen Klopp , yet Slot doesn't seem to rate him and is after an alternative.
As things stand, those attempts have so far failed, with primary target Martin Zubimendi already turning down an approach from the Reds. How Slot would love someone to put in the same level of performance in the No.6 role as Henderson did for Ajax on Thursday.
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