Jordan Henderson's interview about Saudi move dug himself into a deep hole

As Arsenal's defender Oleksandr Zinchenko left the field to be replaced with 15 minutes remaining, he gestured to the wall of yellow and blue that encompassed this stadium to offer the Ukrainian team one final push of support.

As is always the case when this team plays these days, emotion was never far from the surface.

For Ukraine, these events are more than football matches. They form part of a beleaguered nation's healing. Zinchenko, a left-back at Arsenal, is a deep-lying midfielder for his country and a very good one.

Occupying his area of the field here in western Poland was Jordan Henderson. He, too, has learned something about bigger pictures over the course of the last week.

Having given an interview designed to explain his reasoning behind a decision to leave Liverpool for the Saudi Pro League, the 33-year-old seemed only to dig himself a hole so deep it may take some time to find a way out of it.

He's not a bad man, Henderson. He has principles.

But, previously an advocate of LGBTQ+ rights, his choice to earn a living among the repressed and the persecuted of the Saudi oil state has placed a question mark over much of what he has previously said and done.

There had been talk of protests against Henderson here by a section of the travelling England support. They didn't materialise in any particularly noticeable way. Among the Channel 4 team here in Wroclaw, however, there was a point succinctly made.

'I'm a Jordan Henderson fan but now I know I wouldn't be welcome if I wanted to watch him play football,' said Jill Scott, a former England midfielder, who is gay.

This, in short, is Henderson's problem. Many of those who have previously admired him now wonder if they were wrong to do so. It will, it seems, take a while for him to get some of the love back.

England manager Gareth Southgate has professed himself unconcerned. He handed Henderson his 77th cap in the late summer warmth of this strange September heatwave and got in return pretty much what he knew he would.

There was not a single thing about Henderson's football that suggested anything was awry in his world at all.

In moving to Saudi, regardless of the politics and ethics of it, Henderson has placed his position in next summer's squad for the European Championships at risk.

Southgate says this is not the case but Henderson no longer plays his football at the highest level so if he is to continue to be selected it will have to be on reputation.

Here, he played quite high up the field in the orbit of Jude Bellingham. Declan Rice of Arsenal was the holding player. Bellingham, unusually, had a poor night.

Now a much-feted Real Madrid player, there was too much of the Hollywood in some of what he tried here. His manager will noticed that and he was hooked with 25 minutes to go.

With James Maddison also being replaced, Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden were given a run and though they failed to inject any great purpose in to an England display that rarely had much, the appearance of the latter provided some food for thought.

Foden, of Manchester City, is England's most technically gifted footballer but Southgate does struggle to get him in to his team. Here, with Henderson playing in such an advanced role, there is an argument to suggest that Foden could play there.

It would be an attacking move by Southgate. Henderson does lend England some reliability and security. But this was a night that saw England a little short of creative ideas.

They were pulled apart for Ukraine's goal after half an hour. Back on Channel 4, Joe Cole suggested Henderson may have tracked back better.

'Jordan should be getting back into the penalty box,' said Cole. 'He's there but he's not there. You talk about details at the top, top level and that is one.'

That seemed a little fussy. There were several reasons Ukraine were able to open England up but Henderson's positioning didn't really seem to be one of them.

Central defender Harry Maguire and Marc Guehi were pretty much standing on each other's toes when Zinchenko slid the ball in and that certainly didn't help.

This was not peak England, for sure. Too much of what they did was too slow and too predictable. The yield was a decent result, though. It is not the worst thing in the world for a team to realise it can't win every game.

At the end, Henderson walked to the corner where the England fans were standing and was greeted in much the same way as his team-mates. He will have noticed that.

If he is selected for England's friendly with Scotland at Hampden on Tuesday, it may be a little different.