Jordan Henderson has insisted there will be no hangover from Liverpool’s Premier League and Champions League last season.
Liverpool won the FA Cup and League Cup, but their hopes of an unprecedented quadruple were dashed in the space of a week when Manchester City won the Premier League title before losing by 1-0 against Real Madrid in the final of the European Cup.
But Henderson is confident Liverpool will recover quickly from disappointment as they did in previous campaigns.
Liverpool lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid in 2018, but responded by winning the competition the following season and winning their first Premier League title in 2020 12 months after narrowly losing to City.
“No need: we’ve had disappointments in the past and we haven’t had a hangover, so we’ve always reacted the right way,” the Liverpool captain said on the club’s pre-season tour in Bangkok. “We still won two trophies last year, so not everything is negative, there were still positives to get.
“It was a fantastic season. Yes, it didn’t end the way we would have liked, but this is football, this is life, you go ahead and react the right way and we just want to get back to it.
“I wouldn’t say it motivated us more, but you are always motivated to win the biggest trophies. That’s why we play. We want to succeed. We want to win things and we managed to win two last year. It didn’t end the way we would like in the other two, but we moved forward even though that’s all you can ask for to move forward, take on the positives and improve on the things we can improve on. We’ve been doing it for a long time and now we just have to keep going, keep pushing. “
Liverpool have added Uruguay striker Darwin Núñez to a club-record £ 85m deal with Benfica this summer and have linked Mohamed Salah to a new contract, but have lost Sadio Mane to Bayern Munich. Henderson admits Mané’s departure is a “big blow”, but believes they have options to attack Salah, Núñez, Luis Díaz, Roberto Firmino and Diogo Jota to make up for the loss of the Senegalese striker.
“Any team that loses Sadio will be a big hit because he’s a world-class player, for me one of the best strikers in the world, so it’s always going to be hard to lose him,” Henderson said. “But at the same time, we have world-class players, especially at the front line: Luis Díaz, who had a phenomenal good performance. [last season]. Darwin comes in, Bobby will be back, so we have world class options. And things move forward, change, hopefully we can adapt quickly.
“Sadio would be a great foul for anyone. We are sad to see him leave but we wish him all the best. For us, look at the front line and he is still very, very strong. Bobby’s return is a big advantage for us, he was injured much of last season.We have a lot of options for sure, and we hope we can produce as we have done in recent years.
“Darwin gives us a different choice, no doubt, in his way of playing. It is adapting very well. “