The 22-year-old has put his purple patch down to more hours on the training ground practising his finishing

Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson has revealed the secret to his recent goalscoring exploits is that he often stays behind after training to carry out extra work on his finishing.

The England international has forced his way into manager Brendan Rodgers’ plans since the turn of the year with a series of energetic displays in the middle of the park.

And after finding the back of the net during the club’s 2-1 win over Aston Villa on Saturday with a superbly-taken finish, taking his tally to three in the league for the campaign, Henderson has admitted that his progress in front of goal is down to the fact that he frequently practices it after training is over.

“A lot of players do extra training. I tend to work on my finishing,” Henderson told Liverpool’s official magazine.

“I think it’s important as a midfielder to contribute goals. The goalkeepers stay behind with Mike Marsh along with a few of us. I think I need to improve in a lot of areas.

“Scoring goals is one of them. It’s such an important part of football. If a manager knows he can rely on a midfielder to score a few, it means he’s likely to play a lot.”

After finding himself confined solely to the Europa League at the start of the season, Henderson has managed to become an integral part of the club’s league plans in recent months, however, despite an upturn in form he is refusing to get carried away with all the plaudits he’s recently received.

Henderson added: “You have to find a consistency. Even when you are doing well you can’t afford to get too carried away and have too much of a high. 

“But when you’re on a low you can’t get too down. If you’ve got a balanced outlook, it helps.

“You need to be on the same path and keep yourself down to the ground. Especially when you’re at a big club like Liverpool, everything is scrutinised by people.

“You’ve got to perform every week and if you don’t do that, there’s a chance you won’t get picked or you’ll be brought off quickly. The sooner you get your head around that, the better.”

The 40-year-old believes the Reds need to press ahead with recruiting players at the end of the season, citing the need to avoid the problems that hurt the side in the past

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has stated that the club need to focus on adding new players to the squad in the summer and learn from their past mistakes in the transfer market.

The 40-year-old spoke of “operational issues” after the club left themselves with just one fit senior striker by the close of the window in the summer in the form of Luis Suarez after loaning Andy Carroll to West Ham without having a guaranteed replacement lined up.

They moved to rectify that error and bolster their attacking line during January by bringing in Daniel Sturridge from Chelsea and Inter playmaker Philippe Coutinho, with Rodgers admitting that the scars of the Carroll debacle need to avoided at all costs in the future.

“We would have liked to bring in a few more players in the summer but we didn’t,” Rodgers told Yahoo.

“The group were admirable with what they coped in that period because we had a lot of games. We knew we had to bring in reinforcements in January and the board worked superbly to get those players.

“We are hopeful that come the summer we can make more additions that will take us on to the next level.

“So there was no vindication really, just that Andy [Carroll] wanted to play games every week and at the time there wasn’t the availability to bring in a replacement.

“The business we did in January however was excellent and that’s a great credit to the club.”

With the club still maintaining an outside chance of pushing for a top-four place this season, Rodgers believes the way Coutinho and Sturridge have settled has provided a boost to the entire squad.

He added: “He [Sturridge] has settled in very well, but he still has lots of aspects of his game to work on in order to achieve what he wants to and to allow him to make the kind of impact that we want.

“He has made a very promising start and as long as he maintains that same level of commitment and responsible attitude to improving, I can see him being a great signing for the club.

“[Coutinho] might be slight in stature but he’s still got real power and mental strength too, plus he’s a wonderful technician.”

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The veteran Anfield defender believes the Uruguayan attacker is close to his long-time team-mate in terms of quality, and has backed him to be named Player of the Year

Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher says that Luis Suarez rivals Steven Gerrard as the best player he has lined up alongside at Anfield and believes the Uruguayan deserves to be crowned the Player of the Year.

The 35-year-old will be retiring at the end of the season after spending his entire career with the club, and admits that despite Gerrard being the best he has played with, Suarez is beginning to challenge that notion.

“Every side has a couple of players who you hope can turn things for you and Luis does it on a weekly basis for us,” Carragher told reporters.

“I’ve played with a lot of top players here and I’ve always said Stevie was the best player I’ve played with. But Luis is definitely on his shoulder, he is very close.

“He put in another top performance against Aston Villa and shows why he deserves to be PFA Player of the Year.”

Suarez leads the scoring charts in the Premier League this season with 22 goals, three in front of Manchester United striker Robin van Persie, while the Netherlands international has eight assists to Suarez’s four.

The 26-year-old is one of the favourites for this year’s Player of the Season award but faces strong competition from Van Persie and Tottenham’s Gareth Bale, who has been in inspired form throughout the campaign.