Jordan Henderson has been slammed by Liverpool fans for his role in Nottingham Forest ’s second goal on Saturday.
Liverpool picked up a 3-2 win over Forest in the Premier League, but they made heavy work of it, twice conceding sloppy equalisers. Diogo Jota opened the scoring with a close-range header before Neco Williams’ deflected shot made it 1-1.
Jota fired the Reds back in front with a precise finish from another set piece, but Liverpool shot themselves in the foot minutes later. Morgan Gibbs-White fired home from a long throw-in to equalise for a second time before Mohamed Salah sealed the points from Trent Alexander-Arnold ’s free-kick.
It was Gibbs-White’s goal that angered Liverpool fans, who noticed Henderson’s mistake in the build-up. As Forest prepared to take the long throw-in, Henderson can be seen instructing Darwin Nunez to move away from marking Gibbs-White to the edge of the box.
But rather than pick up Gibbs-White himself, Henderson moved back towards Joe Worrell before being left in no-man’s land. The ball was flicked on at the near post by Felipe and looped over Henderson to Gibbs-White, who fired past Alisson on the volley.
Henderson threw his arms up in annoyance before appearing to realise the mistake he had made. Nunez looked away, apparently avoiding eye contact with his captain before trudging up to the halfway line.
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Fortunately the mistake did not cost Liverpool any points, with Salah firing in the winner, but it was emblematic of a poor performance from the home side’s defence. They were constantly 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.”
