Transformed Henderson is the heart of England

PASS completion: 84 per cent. Total passes: 64. Aerial duels won: three of three. Successful tackles made: one of one. Interceptions: one. Clearances: one. Shots on target: one. As Liverpool’s Twitter feed said of Jordan Henderson’s first World Cup game: ‘Well played, captain.’

He’s not England’s captain, of course, but he is no less a leader and no less important in Gareth Southgate’s system than Harry Kane. The pivot, as Southgate calls him, is crucial if playing three at the back. Henderson’s duty is to protect the defensive line but, against Tunisia, he did more.

Henderson was not just a screen or a disrupter of opposition attacks. He was the fire-starter; the player who often got England’s best attacking moves going, who threaded through the important pass or played the ball wide. He linked it all in a way that had seemed beyond him 12 months ago when Southgate was urging him to release the ball quicker. Jurgen Klopp will get the credit for what has been, in terms of wider respect, Henderson’s breakthrough season but do not underestimate the role of Southgate and his team.

Henderson (right) doesn’t play like this for Liverpool. Not exactly. He hits a pass when he can but his role is more that of David Batty. He breaks up play. He attempted 85 tackles in 27 Premier League appearances last season and 40 in 10 Champions League games. Southgate, who does not have the options in midfield, is trusting Henderson to expand his repertoire.

Increasingly, he is what Tony Adams was to Terry Venables in 1996. He is the player off the leash; the one asked to grow. Arsene Wenger gets kudos for making Adams a ball-playing centre half but the evolution began before he was even through the door at Highbury.

It was Venables, with England, who first encouraged Adams to carry the ball out from the back; Venables who afforded him freedom he had not known at Arsenal.

Adams started out as a classy centre half, drawing comparisons with Bobby Moore. George Graham had other ideas and he came to epitomise a very different kind of defender. Adams was supreme at it, too. But that wasn’t him.

‘I would do it to the best of my ability but all the time I was not expressing myself,’ Adams recalled. ‘I wanted to tell the world, the public, “I don’t want to play like this”.’

Venables changed that. He recognised the footballer trying to get out. He needed central defenders to step into midfield occasionally to change the numbers in that area. If it was on, he said, if there was space ahead, Adams should go for it. In 1998, with a clearer head and emboldened by Wenger’s methodology, this shift would culminate in Adams scoring against Everton as Arsenal won the title. He broke upfield, echoing the words of former teammate Kenny Sansom on one of his overlapping runs.

‘Stick me in,’ Adams called to Steve Bould, ‘I’m gone.’ He finished with his left foot, too.

Henderson might have scored against Tunisia on Monday. He was the first to test substitute goalkeeper Farouk Ben Mustapha, from range. It was a smart move, the action of player confident and comfortable. He hasn’t always looked that way for England. Under Klopp, and Southgate, this season there has been a transformation.

It is ironic in the extreme that the FA have twice paid millions for imported elite coaches who did not try to improve England’s footballers one iota, while Southgate, late of Middlesbrough in the Championship, is attempting revolution. It is the reason his tenure increasingly bears comparison with Venables’ determination to turn donkeys into lions in 1996. Too often, with England, lions have become donkeys. Whatever this World Cup holds, Henderson’s conversion suggests the power to change.