‘It’s been a long time coming’: Jordan Henderson delighted to FINALLY get his first goal for England as the Liverpool star hails ‘outstanding’ attitude of Gareth Southgate’s fringe players at the Euros
Jordan Henderson declared his delight at finally scoring his first goal for England on his 62nd cap against Ukraine in their Euro 2020 quarter-final in Rome.
Gareth Southgate‘s side thrashed Andriy Shevchenko’s Ukraine 4-0 at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday night to set up a semi-final date with Denmark on Wednesday, with the central midfielder scoring the fourth goal with a header from a corner.
Henderson admitted he was pleased to get that goalscoring monkey off his back, and hailed the ‘outstanding’ attitude of England’s squad players.
Jordan Henderson admitted his delight at scoring his first goal for England against Ukraine
He said: ‘A very good night. So pleased for the performance level and a great start in the early goal and we kicked on from there. We defended well as a team, scored great goals, created great chances.
‘We have to be pleased with the overall performance. We have a big game Wednesday, we need to recover well and give everything on Wednesday.
‘It’s been a long time coming. I felt one was coming. I thankfully managed to get on the scoresheet. I’m delighted for the lads, the effort tonight was fantastic and will give us good momentum going into the next game. I tried to counter the best I can.
The central midfielder headed in from a corner to mark his first goal in international football
‘On the pitch, I don’t need to score more goals and there’s other players to do that. I need to concentrate on my job. I would like to have scored more goals over the last few years. I managed to get one today which is always nice.’
The Liverpool captain also spoke about the importance of players out of the team waiting for game time, as Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Marcus Rashford and Jude Bellingham got valuable game time.
He added: ‘That’s important in international football. You wait for longer period for certain players to play as much, there are so many good players in the squad.
Liverpool captain also hailed the ‘outstanding’ attitude of players on the fringes of the squad
‘The lads that haven’t played as much have been outstanding, on the training days you don’t see maybe from the oustide but the training is hard the day after the game when you haven’t played – which I’ve been involved.
‘It’s the best squad I’ve seen in that regard, we are getting rewards for that so far. It’s the biggest game of our lives on Wednesday to do our best and get to the final.
‘It will be a tough game against Denmark, we played against them a few months ago they are a tough side and we have to be at our best to get to the final. Hopefully we get a good result.’