Why Henderson holds no Christmas fears
After playing an integral role in his side's phenomenal win at Tottenham Hotspur, Jordan Henderson urged his Liverpool teammates to maintain their recent form throughout the challenging Christmas period.
The 23-year-old midfielder was on target at White Hart Lane on Sunday, adding to a Luis Suarez double and second-half efforts by Jon Flanagan and Raheem Sterling to secure a handsome 5-0 scoreline.
In beating Spurs and claiming a third successive victory, Brendan Rodgers' team rose to second place in the Barclays Premier League - perfect preparation for the Reds' remaining festive games in December.
"We have got to go in with a lot of confidence," Henderson told Liverpoolfc.com ahead of fixtures with Cardiff City, Manchester City and Chelsea in the next fortnight.
"We've got Cardiff and I'm sure that will be a difficult game, because they have just beaten West Brom at the weekend.
"They will make it difficult for us but we need to make sure we're on it straight from the start again. Then there are a couple of difficult games after that but we'll go into them very confident.
"It was brilliant to play in. I thought we dominated the game from start to finish. We were under pressure a couple of times, but we dealt with it really well defensively. We kept the ball really well and scored some brilliant goals.
"I've been trying, I need to work on chipping in with a few goals to help the team out. Thankfully I got one and hopefully I can get a few more."
The resounding triumph in North London was all the more impressive given that Liverpool were without captain Steven Gerrard, Jose Enrique and Daniel Sturridge due to injury.
Henderson echoed the opinion of midfield colleague Joe Allen in observing that the dominant display proved the strength at Rodgers' disposal when the boss is required to make changes.
He added: "It shows our depth in the squad. The people that played were outstanding. Obviously Steven and Daniel are massive misses for the team because they are fantastic players and they bring a lot to how we want to play.
"But I think we coped very well. We've got some tough games coming up - we need to make sure we recover well and look forward to them."