Jordan Henderson believes Liverpool, not Roma, should be considered underdogs in Champions League tie

Henderson believes the Italians laid a marker down by eliminating Barcelona

Jordan Henderson believes that Liverpool should be considered as underdogs in their Champions League semi-final against Roma, despite knocking out Manchester City in the previous round.

Jürgen Klopp’s side return to European action at Anfield on Tuesday night knowing they will contest next month’s final if they can overcome their Italian visitors over the course of two legs.

Liverpool upset the odds in the last round to eliminate City – the newly-crowned Premier League champions – and are well-fancied to face either Real Madrid or Bayern Munich in the Kiev showpiece on 26 May.

Roma, however, produced one of the competition’s most remarkable comebacks to eliminate Barcelona in the last round and Henderson believes that achievement should make the visitors favourites.

“You look at their last game – they knocked Barcelona out and so have really laid down a marker for the Champions League,” the Liverpool captain said on Monday.

“They are the team to beat so we have to go out there and do what we do which is give everything and do what the manager wants us to do. If we can do that it gives us a better chance of getting to the final.

“I still see us as going into this game as the underdog with them going and beating Barcelona, who were probably favourites before the last round.”

Henderson added: “[Beating City] was just us going out and doing what we are capable of doing. We need to keep doing that, we need to do that again, and again, and again. We are always going to come up with challenges.

“This is a huge challenge, a huge test for us because Roma are a fantastic side with fantastic players as they’ve shown throughout the Champions League this season.

“We’ve just got to keep doing what we’ve been doing in the Champions League this season, keep improving because we can still be better. Tomorrow will have to be the perfect performance to get a good result.”

Tuesday’s meeting will invoke memories of 1984, when the two clubs contested that year’s European Cup final in Rome. Joe Fagan’s Liverpool triumphed on penalties after a 1-1 draw that year, thanks in part to goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar’s famous wobbly knees.

Henderson expects his team-mates to draw inspiration from that victory but believes Liverpool’s current crop of players – yet to win a trophy under Klopp – are now good enough to write their own names in the record books.

“We definitely take inspiration from [1984] but at the same time our focus is to create our own history and for people to be looking back at this team in 20 or 30 years time and saying how good we were and how special this year was or the next few years will be,” he said.

“I feel as though we are in a great place but I feel that this is just the start of something special. This is the first of huge games and hopefully we can have many more to come over the next few years.”