Jordan Henderson has been criticised by Liverpool suppoerters for his role in Nottingham Forest ’s second goal on Saturday afternoon.
Liverpool picked up a 3-2 win over Forest in the Premier League, but they were made to work for it, twice conceding sloppy equalisers.
Diogo Jota had opened the scoring with a close-range header before Neco Williams’ shot made it 1-1.
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Jota fired the Reds back in front with a good finish from another set piece, but Liverpool shot themselves in the foot few minutes later. Morgan Gibbs-White fired home from a throw-in to equalise for a second time before Mohamed Salah sealed the points.
It was Gibbs-White’s goal that angered Liverpool fans, who saw Henderson’s error in the build-up. As Forest prepared to take the long throw-in, Henderson can be seen telling Darwin Nunez to move away from marking Gibbs-White.
But rather than pick up Gibbs-White himself, Henderson moved back towards Worrell before being left in no-man’s land. The ball was flicked on at the near post and looped over Henderson to Gibbs-White, who fired beyond Alisson on the volley.
Henderson threw his arms up in annoyance before realising the mistake he had made. Nunez looked away, avoiding eye contact with his skipper before trudging up to the halfway line.
Fortunately the mistake did not cost Liverpool, with Salah scoring the winner, but it was emblematic of a poor display from the home team’s defence.
They were regularly troubled by Forest’s throw-ins, with Taiwo Awoniyi going close with an overhead kick from another in the second half.
“We made it more difficult for ourselves,” Henderson admitted post-match. “We could defend the long throw-ins a bit better and conceding two from that is something we can work on for sure.
“But overall I’m delighted with the reaction to the setbacks and to still get the winner. We knew the type of game it would be and we had to be patient with the ball, wait for the right chances.
“We had a couple of chances with Jota at the back post and we couldn’t find the net. We had to keep going and be patient and then to take the other opportunities.”
Jota told Premier League Productions: “It was really important to win today to follow up the last one. It was a difficult game like we expected, we created chances even in the first half, but we had to wait for the goal.
“Set-pieces are very important, it was a set-piece game as they scored from them as well. We need to improve defensively but offensively in that area, we were almost perfect.”
