The 2022/23 campaign was not a vintage one for Jordan Henderson at Liverpool.
The Reds skipper came off his 11th season at Anfield on the back of leading them to within a whisker of an unprecedented quadruple as Jurgen Klopp's men became just the fourth team to win both domestic cups in the same term.
Within weeks, however, it had become apparent that the club was still suffering an almighty hangover from the efforts of the previous term as they struggled under the long shadow of what eventually amounted to 63 fixtures in total.
A last-gasp 30-yard strike on the opening day against Fulham almost rescued Liverpool at Craven Cottage but an underwhelming 2-2 draw in west London would set the tone for what followed as the Reds struggled to build up any fluency and rhythm.
At times it felt as though Henderson was playing through the pain barrier in the early weeks before he was forced to concede defeat by being withdrawn through injury during a 2-1 win over Newcastle in late August. That muscle problem would keep Henderson sidelined for around a month before he returned with four successive starts against Brighton, Arsenal and home and away against Rangers in the Champions League.
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The skipper was left out of the team that beat Manchester City 1-0 in mid-October, however, as Klopp opted for the youthful exuberance of Harvey Elliott alongside Thiago Alcantara and Fabinho. The typically hard-running Henderson was not able to influence proceedings on the right side of the midfield three as he had done the previous campaign when his willingness to take up wide positions helped both Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold wreak havoc.
Questions over the make-up of the midfield and Klopp's decision not to add to it in the previous transfer window raged all season and Henderson was in the eye of the storm as much as anyone else as the collective performances took a huge dip across the board.
Henderson was a sub for back-to-back defeats to Nottingham Forest and Leeds United in a week that ultimately proved fatal for Liverpool's top-four hopes although his presence on the bench for a invigorating 2-1 win at Tottenham was also a glimpse into a future without the skipper as a fixed-term starter in Klopp's midfield.
Henderson was absent for a particularly poor 3-1 loss at Brentford at the turn of the year but he had no such mitigation as he and his colleagues turned in a woeful showing in a 3-0 defeat to Brighton at the Amex Stadium later that month.
A return to form came via a 2-0 win over Everton in February before Henderson turned in arguably his performance of the season against Manchester United when the Reds recorded a truly historic 7-0 thumping of their arch-rivals.
He started eight of an 11-game unbeaten streak in the final two months of the campaign and was his typically industrious self in victories over West Ham, Leicester and Fulham. With a rebuilding of the midfield to come this summer transfer window, however, Henderson is likely to face sterner competition than he has in years for a place in the Reds' engine room. The early addition of Alexis Mac Allister alone is proof of that.
Henderson was named as a substitute 14 times last term and while that figure is two less than the campaign that preceded it, the Reds were involved in 11 games fewer across all competitions. It points to a player who, at the age of 33 before the start of next season, will be used more sparingly, particularly given the amount of football he's played across a long-serving and decorated Anfield career.
End-of-season rating: 5
