Henderson wary of Barcelona repeat as Roma leave Liverpool with hope

Jordan Henderson has told Liverpool not to follow in Barcelona’s footsteps and allow Roma to complete a second-leg comeback in their Champions League tie.

Jurgen Klopp’s side looked to be cruising into the semi-finals after racing into a 5-0 lead at Anfield inside 68 minutes, with Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino netting twice and Sadio Mane also on the scoresheet.

But Roma gave themselves hope ahead of the return fixture, with Edin Dzeko’s strike and a Diego Perotti penalty – both of which came in the final nine minutes – ensuring the match ended at 5-2.

The result means Eusebio Di Francesco’s side will reach the final if they can repeat the performance against Barca in the quarter-final second leg, when they overturned a 4-1 first-leg loss with a 3-0 victory in the return.

And Henderson, despite his confidence in Liverpool’s attack, admits they must learn from the Catalans’ mistakes if they are to avoid a similar fate.

 Salah 36
 Salah 45+1
 Mané 56
 Firmino 61
 Firmino 69
 Džeko 81
 Perotti 85pen

What. A. Game! #UCL pic.twitter.com/rkWB0HlKDY

— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) April 24, 2018

“I felt as though we were in full control and we basically gave them two goals,” he told BT Sport. “You can’t really do it in the Champions League.

“At the same time, we’ve played well, we’ve won the game and we’ll go there with a three-goal advantage, but it’ll be difficult. As you’ve seen in the last round, they came back against Barcelona, who are one of the best teams in the world.

“It’ll be a really tough challenge for us but we’ve got to be confident after the performance.

“I felt we were still in control of the game, maybe we didn’t play football as much in the last 20 minutes. I feel we gave them the Dzeko goal, which put up a few nerves, maybe, I don’t know why.

“The penalty I thought was harsh, I thought his [James Milner’s] arms were by his side, but we’ve got to stay confident. It was a good performance for 70 minutes.

“Some of the runs and some of the balls in behind were brilliant. We were disappointed not to score more, to be honest. But we’ve got to be positive. We knew it wouldn’t be easy and it won’t be easy over there, it’ll be really tough, as Barcelona found.

“We’ll need to be at our best but I’d fancy us to go there and score, with the forward players we’ve got. It’ll be a challenge but one we’ve got to look forward to.”