'Everybody can chip in' - Henderson says all Liverpool players must take responsibility for goal drought

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'Everybody can chip in' - Henderson says all Liverpool players must take responsibility for goal drought image

Jordan Henderson says all Liverpool players must take responsibility for their recent goal drought and that "everybody can chip in" to help them rediscover their scoring touch.

The defending champions missed the chance to return to the top of the Premier League table after being held to a 0-0 draw by Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday.

That result means Liverpool have failed to score in three successive matches for the first time since 2005, with questions now being asked of out-of-form trio Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane.

However, Henderson doesn't think the burden of finding the back of the net should be shouldered by those three players alone, and has called on the rest of the team to step up and contribute in the final third of the pitch.

“Well, we need to score goals to win games,” The Reds captain told the club's official website after the stalemate with United. “I’m not talking just about the front three, by the way.

“I’m talking about everyone: midfielders, full-backs getting into the box, set-pieces. Everybody can chip in. We need to start doing that quickly.

“Like I say, just that little bit of luck dropping to someone or ricocheting off someone and going in, because we had good enough chances to win the game.

“The performance level I think we can be pleased with. I think we gave everything to try to win the game but, unfortunately, just couldn’t find that goal. Which we find ourselves keeping saying that over the last few weeks. That needs to change quickly.”

Henderson added: “The performance again today was very good, we worked hard and kept going right until the end, kept pushing.

“Sometimes it can happen in football, you just can’t quite find that goal or the last pass in the final third. We’re all human, you know – you can see when we miss chances, we’re a little bit down confidence-wise but then we need to keep going to try to find that goal really.

“We’ve just got to keep working hard and not think about it too much, because the quality we possess going forward is frightening. So it’s not quality, we just need to change our mentality a little bit and make sure we’re ruthless when we come in front of goal.

“Like I say, that’s not just the front three, that’s everybody that gets into the box and gets the opportunity to score. Which we haven’t said for a long time, to be honest – we’ve scored a lot of goals.

“That’s one thing we need to change quickly because today, defending-wise, everybody throughout the team defended really well. I thought some of the football was outstanding and we played some great stuff. It’s just that last little bit. Still plenty of games to go and we need to keep pushing right until the end.”

Liverpool will now look ahead to a meeting with Burnley at Anfield on Thursday, where they will be aiming to bring a four-match winless run to an end and extend their unbeaten home record to 69 matches.

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