Jordan Henderson has backed Liverpool's record signing Darwin Nunez to fill the void left by Sadio Mane's exit.
Uruguay striker Nunez became Liverpool 's club record signing following his £85million move from Benfica, replacing Mane, who left after six years to join Bayern Munich. Although Henderson acknowledged Mane will be a big loss, the Liverpool skipper said Jurgen Klopp's side now have an attack with different dimensions, following the arrival of Nunez.
Along with Mo Salah, who signed a new deal this summer, Liverpool also have Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino, back from injury, giving Klopp a wealth of options up front. “For any team that loses Sadio it will be a big blow, because he's a world-class player, for me one of the best forwards in the world,” said Henderson.
“But we’ve got world class players, especially in the forward line. Luis Diaz, who performed phenomenally well last season. Darwin has come in, Bobby [Firmino] is coming back, so we’ve got world-class options. Things move on and change, so hopefully we can adapt to that quickly.
“Darwin is a new option, a different dimension for us with the way we play and we’ve got to adapt to that quickly, get used to it. But Luis came in for a large part of last season and obviously Darwin is hopefully a huge player for us going forward, and we have some young players coming through as well.
“Darwin can score goals and that's a big reason why we signed him, but also the recruitment and the manager, the staff, will have watched him in plenty of other games and will have seen a lot of quality and seen a very good player. Hopefully he can settle in and hit the ground running.”
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Henderson also said Salah signing a new contract until 2025 was a huge positive for Liverpool, given the Egypt forward's enduring quality and importance to the side. “We always knew Mo would be here this season, regardless,” said Henderson. “But when you see the contract get done, of course it's nice to see it's over the line and he just can now concentrate on playing for us.”
Despite pushing right to the end of the season for an unprecedented Quadruple, Liverpool ended last season winning the League Cup and FA Cup. They missed out on the Premier League by a point and losing the Champions League final to Real Madrid, Henderson insisted there will be no hangover.
“There’s no need for that,” said Henderson. “We've had disappointments in the past and we didn’t have hangovers, so we've always reacted in the right way. We still won two trophies last year, so it’s not all negative, there were still positives to take out of what was a fantastic season.”
Henderson said he does not expect next season's title race to be another battle between themselves and reigning champions Manchester City. “I never think it will be just us and City,” said the Liverpool skipper. “I always think other teams strengthen. You look at Chelsea, they're strengthening, Manchester United will strengthen, Spurs will strengthen and have done quite a lot so far.”
