How ‘mistakes’ have kept Jordan Henderson winless at Ajax as ex-Liverpool captain tells Dutch giants how to break his duck

The England international midfielder moved to the Netherlands during the winter transfer window as he agreed to the mutual cancellation of his contract at Saudi Pro League outfit Al-Ettifaq. A return to Europe was supposed to help the 33-year-old get his career back on track.

Henderson has been involved in two draws and a defeat since heading to Amsterdam, with a 3-2 Europa Conference League reversal endured at the hands of Bodo/Glimt in his latest outing. Henderson told TNT Sports after that contest: “They're a good team. They set up really well, very organised. They hurt us on the counter-attack a couple of times. We did well in the end to come back from 2-0 behind. We showed great character again but we leave it too late. You've got to start games better and start games like we finish in the last couple. If we do that then it can be a different game. In the end the lads kept going right until the end, got our rewards and kept the tie alive.

"It says a lot about the character of the team to keep going. It's a very young team as I keep saying and they're going to make mistakes and we've got to learn from those mistakes as a team. But we keep going, especially in football you never know what can happen. You've seen in the last 10 minutes we had a good go and managed to get two goals and kept the tie alive. We need to do that for longer periods in the game not just towards the end. We need to start well and play like that for 90 minutes if we can and that's the aim for the next game.”

Despite still waiting on his first success at Ajax, Henderson added on how he is settling in to life in new surroundings: “Really good with the group. The players have been really good with me, I've settled in really quickly. The staff as well have been brilliant. On that part it's been really easy for me to come and settle in. But it's going to take a while for us to get to where we want to get to and I just want to keep trying to play games and help the team as much as possible to get the team to where they want to be.”

Ajax, who endured a nightmare start to the 2023-24 campaign, will be back in Eredivisie action on Sunday when playing host to NEC. Positive results will be required from this point if European qualification is going to be secured for 2024-25.