Henderson on 'outstanding' Alisson, digging in and winning momentum
Jordan Henderson paid tribute to Alisson Becker after the goalkeeper's immense performance provided the foundation of Liverpool's 3-1 win over Crystal Palace.
The No.1 made several outstanding saves to keep the Eagles at bay at Selhurst Park on Sunday afternoon, with goals from Virgil van Dijk and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, plus Fabinho’s late penalty, earning a crucial Premier League victory.
“He was [outstanding], but he’s always like that, to be honest!” Henderson told Liverpoolfc.com, when asked about Alisson’s contribution.
“You do take him for a granted a little bit. With the saves that he makes, he makes them look so easy, but there was a couple of big moments in the second half that he sort of dug us out and kept us in the game.
“So, a massive performance from him and ultimately he gets us the three points.”
Read on for the rest of our post-match interview with the captain…
On how satisfying a victory it was…
Very pleased overall with the win. The first 35 minutes I thought we controlled the game, played some great stuff, some great football, two good goals and then took our foot off the pedal a little bit in the last 10 minutes of the first half, which we were disappointed with going in at half-time. Then in the second half it was tough, especially when they got the goal and their crowd got up, it can be difficult. But I thought the lads dug in really well, we got the penalty near the end to secure the win and overall it was a pleasing night to get the three points.
On Van Dijk being such an attacking threat from set-pieces…
Yeah, definitely. A fantastic delivery by Robbo as well, which is important for us. Set-plays have been big and if you give Virg a free header then nine times out of 10 he will put it in the back of the net, so it was a great header, a great delivery and that got us under way. A great positive start and then the second goal was a great goal as well from Ox. But after that we can be better, we can improve because we dominated up until that point.
On Fabinho keeping his cool to seal the win from the spot…
Mo will not be happy that he wasn’t here to take it! But yeah, Fab’s taken a couple of penalties and got a few goals recently so it was nice for him again to get on the scoresheet to secure the win in the end.
On how important it was to get the victory after Manchester City dropped points on Saturday…
We want to keep going, there is still a long way to go. We know City have got a big lead and are a fantastic side so it’s just about concentrating on ourselves and what we can do. We want to keep winning games and see where we are at come the end of the season.
On whether having a two-week break is frustrating given the Reds’ run of three consecutive wins…
We’ve had a big week, three big wins and three good performances so it would have been nice to carry it on I suppose with the rhythm that we’ve got. But it’s an opportunity to recharge after a hectic couple of months, to sort of recharge the batteries, come back and hopefully be in good shape to then finish the remaining part of the season off and hopefully we can finish strong.