Paul Scholes Claims Chelsea Star Should Not Start Premier League Games After He Was “Found Out” Vs Brentford
This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.
Manchester United legend Paul Scholes doesn’t believe Jordan Henderson should be starting Premier League games for Chelsea due to his age.
The 36-year-old started his first game for the Blues against Brentford last Friday, and Scholes said he was very surprised to see the midfielder’s name in the eleven:
“I never expected him to be starting a Premier League game. I don’t care how old you are, how much you look after yourself, being at that age and playing in the Premier League now especially, you’ve got to be a machine. You’ve got to be athletic; you don’t get away with it I’m afraid. You get found out.”
“He’ll know it himself. He’ll think, ‘I shouldn’t really be starting’, I remember I did it against Manchester City when I was 36. The manager actually picked me, and I thought, ‘I shouldn’t be playing this game, I shouldn’t be starting this game… maybe the last 15-20 minutes if it needs calming down a little bit’, and I never got the ball; I never touched the ball. I just knew it was too much for me; I shouldn’t really have been playing.”
Henderson covered the 2nd most distance of any player
One massive hole in Scholes’ argument is the number of kilometres that the England international ran at the Gtech Community Stadium.
Henderson recorded 11.6 km, which was more than any other player on the pitch for either Chelsea or Brentford, with the exception of Pep Chavarria (11.7km).
Buy Chelsea tickets with P1 Travel here
He won’t be starting every week after the international break
Even if Scholes’ concerns were valid, it is unlikely that manager Xabi Alonso will select Henderson in his starting lineup on a regular basis anyway.
Moises Caicedo is expected to return to full fitness soon after recovering from a troublesome calf problem, while the likes of Romeo Lavia and Valentic Barco are also available.