Gerrard is such a great player that in his later years we have seen him reinvent himself with his full passing range coming to the fore as never before and his game management skills utilized by club and country.
How great is Steven Gerrard? There have been plenty of brilliant players during his 17 years in the first team at Anfield, but to my mind there hasn’t been a player in the Premier League who could have driven Liverpool to win the Champions League which such an inferior squad and reach the final again two years later.
My greatest memory from the Istanbul final is not his brilliant headed goal which gave us hope and gave us back some pride on a night when annihilation looked a distinct possibility. It’s not his surging run which ended with Gattuso desperately hauling him down to allow Xabi Alonso to bring us back to parity.
It was his superb defensive display in extra-time against a rampaging Serghino at right-back which encapsulates the player Steven Gerrard and lives in my memory. Great players that Scholes and Lampard undoubtedly are, that night marked him out as something extra special.
His final years a England captain proved that the team way before then should have been built around him. He was often the scapegoat made to play out of position or to accommodate others. The 2010 World Cup was a point in case. He scored the opener against the USA, but as soon as the game started to go away from England and the Americans equalise, Gerrard is shunted out wide.As Liverpool fans and supporters we know he carried us for most of his 17 years as a Liverpool player and without him there would be no Champions League finals and certainly no FA Cup Final win over West Ham.
There have been too many special moments to mention be it Olympiakos or as disappointing as it finally was the second place in the 2013-14 Premiership under his superb leadership. He has undeniably suffered anguish in slipping against Chelsea and England’s disappointing World Cup, but as great a player as Gerrard is his true greatness will be measured in years to come when we really take stock of his remarkable career.
The call is that he may end his career in America, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this multi-faceted player ends his playing days in Europe.
For me, Gerrard is quite simply pound for pound the greatest ever Liverpool player and definitely the best midfield player in the Premiership era and that’s going some.
Sure, if he had left eleven years ago with Chelsea he would have added the Premiership to his honours roster, but one gets the feeling that winning trophies for his home town club was the be all and end all. As he once said, “When I die, don’t bring me to hospital, bring me to Anfield. I was born there, and so I will die there.”
I’ll leave the last word to Terry McDermott who played alongside many players who could lay claim to being in any of Liverpool’s all-time great eleven.
He said the following about Gerrard last April: "I've gone on record as saying Steven Gerrard is the best midfield player Liverpool have ever had. "I know my mate Graeme Souness would probably give me a rollicking for not saying him, and he was a fantastic player for this club, but Steven has everything.
"Gerrard is in the same sentence for me as Kenny Dalglish and Kevin Keegan. He is Mr Liverpool and I love watching him play. "He is wholehearted, he gives everything for the red shirt every game and he can do everything. In fact I can't think of anything he can't do and I wouldn't be surprised if he's very good in goal as well."
Not gonna take away the gloss from the blog so just gonna say he was the best and most exciting midfielder we have ever had and that includes Graeme Souness, what makes him great was the fact that he played in an era when we were no longer the best side in England and Europe but still got us almost single handedly to experience the beauty of winning another European Cup. Thank you Stevie G for all the great memories and lets just hope you can assist the side one more time to push on for a top four spot and also to lift one final trophy for the club you have loved all your life. Imagine a midfield pairing of Souness and Gerrard dictating the middle of the park with Dalglish and Rush up front now the mind boggles to how great that would have been to see it just once! It would be very fitting for Gerrard to score the final goal which secures a win in a cup final or the Europa league final - he deserves to go out with a major bang so that we can say for one final time How harrrrrrrd? Gerrrrrrrraarrrrrrrd!!! Stevie G you will always be in the hearts of LFC fans the world over, YNWA.
ReplyDeleteA shock but maybe it was time... immense and phenomenal player always a legend and a hero in my books, the engine of LFC since me growing up and supporting LFC.
DeleteIn my opinion his being dropped for the Real Madrid could not have helped in the scheme of things. I have no problem with BR making changes, particularly as we were playing some pretty inept stuff up until then. But, I think where he fell down in his decision making was to play Gerrard et al against Chelsea in the following game even though it was agreed through common consent that the so-called B team had played pretty well in Madrid.
ReplyDeleteIt must of had an effect on team morale with those who played in Madrid and certainly for Stevie G who is a big game player and knows that given he is closer to the end of his career the start chances of playing in amphitheatre's like the Vincente Caldron are getting slimmer.
Surprised his not got a role a bit like Giggs, a learning curve, team motivator, etc.
DeleteTotally agree with Kop Post that the Madrid away CL game was vital to Stevie's decision to leave as our manager made a major gaffe by not showing him the respect he has earned and playing him in such a massive game.
ReplyDeleteThe whole transfer strategy has now got to be revised as we continue to look to the future rather than the present and have now managed to bring in so many players under 24 that we are now releasing talented players like Suso for free in the summer.
The transfer strategy has also meant that rather than securing our present by tieing up our captain's contract and senior players like Henderson, these are left maybe as an oversight until it is too late and that is why our captain feels disappointed to draw the curtains to his fantastic career at our club.