Gabby Agbonlahor suggests £20m Liverpool player has gone really downhill

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Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson no longer looks like the same player he was in the past.

That’s the view of TalkSPORT pundit Gabby Agbonlahor. Asked to assess what Liverpool need in the transfer market, the former England striker suggested that Henderson may now need replacing.

“They lost Keita, Milner, Firmino, they’ve got Mac Allister in,” began Agbonahor. “I think they need another sitter because Fabinho looks like his legs are going a bit, Henderson isn’t the same player he used to be.”

Henderson ready for reduced role

There’s no getting around it, Liverpool’s skipper is no longer an automatic starter for Jurgen Klopp. To be honest though, he never necessarily was.

In the seven full seasons of Klopp’s management, Henderson’s record of Premier League starts reads as follows: 24, 25, 21, 26, 20, 29, 23.

Quite remarkably, the 33-year-old has never managed to break the 30 starts barrier under the German.

As Agbonlahor points out, that’s highly unlikely to start now. In fact, if Henderson does hit that number for the first time since 2014/15, something will have gone badly wrong at Liverpool.

But as of this moment, there’s every chance that Reds supporters will see their No.14 lining up at Stamford Bridge on August 13th. Unless they get one or two more signings in, that will remain the case.

Not that there’s necesaarily anything wrong with that. As Henderson demonstrated in his performances for England recently, he’s still got plenty to offer.

If he isn’t being asked to play week-in-week-out, fans and pundits will start to see that. But unfortunately for Jordan, he’s now at the stage of his career where he’s starting to look his age. A reduced role is surely required next season.