I think most of us agree that Hendo will play less this season. Two midfielders signed, Trent in the hybrid role…all pointing to less action for the captain.
He has been a legend. Class act, makes some of the prima donnas look like kids with his actions. That is a given to most of us I reckon.
I think he is club captain no matter what, but maybe team captain is the role of a regular starter.
Millie is gone as vice captain, so we might be considering two positions.
Obviously Virgil will be in the mix, but are there others under consideration?
Allison
Trent
Mo
Robbo
All of these are regular starters and gave the credentials…
Shanks and Bob were never afraid to change their captains. They knew when it was time.
Not for now. Hendo could still play a lot of games next season. Plus, as mentioned, we already have clear options below him. So, no need for some sort of official change of club captain. Whether something happens inside like when the captaincy was handed from Hyypia to Gerrard, we cannot tell. Doesn’t seem likely. I do hope in general that we won’t miss Millie, because from what I read he was of important help to Hendo. Not afraid to be harder on people.
They had somewhat different approaches. Not saying one is better than the other. Hendo himself said that Millie pushed him to be harder on people in some situations when Hendo was more “nice”. From what he also said, it seems like he’s different to when he’s all loud and shouts on the pitch. Leads more by example off the pitch. While Millie was probably someone always on it and on everyone. Not that we cannot do without it, there are also other people who can step in their own way. Think this is often a problem in society these days, it’s almost like people struggle to find the right balance between being authoritative and fair or polite(?) enough.
It has always been my opinion that James Milner was the perfect captain. Unfortunately, his time is over and probably had been for quite some time. If Henderson significantly less than before, I think it may be a good idea to make him vice-captain and give the actual captaincy to the most assumed solid starter we have. The one with the most natural charisma and authority as well as brains. I think Van Dijk is a very good candidate really.
The good thing here is that we’ve been together for a long time, especially in today’s standards when coaches, ideas and players change like socks. So we don’t have an issue, we have a group of leaders, we’ve been through some of the best of times and some very bad times (for us) as well. I believe our balance on paper between experience and youth is still where it needs to be. Now it’s more about actual football problems we had last season, raising that again.
If we’re changing skippers now then in for a penny or in for a pound, as it were, and give it to Trent. He’s likely to be here longer after everyone else has moved themselves on and he’s long been spoken of as a future captain. Gerrard took it young and never looked back.
I think Hendo lost it last season, I’ve mentioned this before that I saw a definite change right from pre season. He probably deserves and will most likely get another season as captain.
I don’t like the idea of Trent as captain, maybe later but definitely not now.
I think Hendo provides a lot as captain off the pitch and commands a lot of respect from the rest of the squad, so even if he’s not playing as often as previously I think he will (and should) remain captain until such a time that he’s no longer at the club.
Leaders set the standards and hold others to them. They don’t need an armband to do that but it helps if you make one of them the defacto captain of the team.
We have plenty of leaders and some emerging ones too but aside from replacing Milner in that group, and the players will decide who that is, then we don’t need to do anything else until Hendo’s time here comes to an end.