Nobody takes player welfare seriously - Liverpool’s Henderson

Jordan Henderson

, the

captain, is concerned that "nobody really takes player welfare seriously" as the

fixtures are packed.

The Reds were held to a 2-2 draw with

on Sunday as part of a five-match run in two weeks.

Although a hectic schedule in December is not new for Premier League sides, the pandemic’s impact, especially with a rise in Covid-19 cases by the Omicron variant, has worsened matters.

All games except four were postponed due to the rise in the Covid-19 cases between players and staff members, while

Jurgen Klopp

’s side were without Virgil van Dijk, Curtis Jones, Fabinho and Thiago Alcantara against Tottenham after positive test results.

Liverpool are going to rotate their team for their EFL Cup game on Wednesday against Leicester City, with their next clash coming four days away against Leeds United. Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel is determined to use Under-23 players in their battle against Brentford as many are absent with injury or positive test results.

Notwithstanding the problems, clubs decided to continue the festive schedule when they had a meeting on Monday and Henderson thinks that players will suffer should their worries over the packed schedule are not taken seriously.

"

I don't think people can appreciate how intense it is until you actually see it first hand,"

he told

BBC Sport

.

"Football to us is everything, and we want to be able to perform at the highest level every time we set foot on the pitch. And unfortunately, in this period it is difficult to do that.

"That has been like this for a few years now, and it has been difficult but then, on top of that, you chuck in Covid and it becomes even harder and even worse.

"I am concerned that nobody really takes player welfare seriously.

"I think decisions get made – of course we want to play as footballers, we want to get out there and play – but I am worried about player welfare and I don't think anybody does take that seriously enough, especially in this period, when Covid is here.

"We will try to have conversations in the background and try to have some sort of influence going forward, but at the minute I don't feel the players get the respect they deserve in terms of having somebody being able to speak for them independently and having the power to say actually this isn't right for player welfare.

"I know people will say we do get paid a lot of money to go out and play football. I get that and understand that, but football is everything to us. And especially those players that are playing international games and European games, you get a maximum of probably two or three weeks off a year. I am not sure that is enough to physically recover and mentally recover from the season previous.

"But again, there is no communication with players in terms of what they think, which is a big problem really, I am not saying they have to make decisions on what players think, because everybody will have a different opinion, but I think they need to be part of a conversation because, ultimately, we are the ones that are going out and feeling it and playing it."

Henderson did not feature on Sunday as he was dealing with a cold, but the England international’s test turned out negative.

Follow

for the