Fan rant of the day: Leadership rides high at Liverpool after a long time and it’s not about Henderson

Liverpool’s season has started in the best possible way with four wins from four games. Although we haven’t been at our slickest in front of the goal, securing maximum points from four games with three clean sheets provides an impressive reading for the remainder of the campaign.

Signing Alisson has worked out well, despite his antics in the 2-1 win over Leicester City last time around.

We now have a vocal keeper who communicates with the back four. With Alisson and Virgil van Dijk, another loud person, we finally have players who are willing to scream at their teammates when they make mistakes.

More leaders equal more steel in the team

Liverpool didn’t have many leaders in their side a few years ago and by leaders, we mean players who were captains and vice-captains for their national teams.

If we look back at the Brendan Rodgers era, we would only list Steven Gerrard as the “leader” and even he was on the wane, barring that impressive 2013/14 season.

Luis Suarez was another player you could count on but that was about it.

The last two seasons have seen a lot of changes for the Reds. Jordan Henderson might have been demoted as vice-captain of the national side but he still seems to do more of a captain’s role for the Three Lions than Harry Kane.

We then have Andy Robertson, 24, who was recently named as captain for the Scottish national team. Virgil van Dijk leads the Dutch side while Sadio Mane captained the Senegalese side in a game at the World Cup.

We even have a captain who doesn’t get to start enough games for us and that is Ragnar Klavan.

The great thing about these leaders is that they are young and are willing to grow and get better in the years to come. All of them, barring Klavan, are 28 or younger and this could help us in the coming seasons.

Liverpool have often lacked players who can energize the team when things aren’t going right.

Steven Gerrard was brilliant at this but he couldn’t do it all on his own. That’s why we need people like Sami Hyypia, Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano and even Pepe Reina as they could get things done by the team.

This Liverpool side is something similar, though the players haven’t all reached top billing yet. To be fair, that Rafa Benitez side won trophies while we are still some way from picking up silverware.

We have come close to doing so under Klopp but seem to be missing out something in the finals – possibly grit, determination and steel.

That is changing this time around, however, as our last three games were close ties against some banana skin opponents.

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Playing away against Crystal Palace and Leicester City was never going to be easy but we won. This is something we have to build on and with four-five real leaders in the side, with other world-class signings too, Liverpool have more leadership now than I can recall.