02 Jan 2015 10:02:01
Steven Gerrard is 34 years old. He should easily have two more years of making significant contributions to the first team. If he's not prepared to accept that he won't play every minute of every match, then that's different and fair enough, go and play out your last few years elsewhere. I don't think that's the case though. I think the problem is the players around him and the expectation of the fans. The perception of what Gerrard can now deliver for Liverpool is coloured by two things.

1. The sub-standard players he's had around him in the past, which made it appear, at times, that he was almost super-human dragging the team along single-handedly, making his brilliance stand out and seem even more magnificent. In our memories, this legend grows greater with each passing year (and is probably slightly insulting to the contributions of the likes of Carragher, Hyppia and a few others).
2. The sub-standard players he has around him now and the fact that, inevitably and perfectly understandably, he is not as capable as he was at 25 of doing it all by himself, which means we now judge him down on the stellar standards he set over the last 15 years.

Look at Lampard, still making critical contributions in a title chasing team at 36. Giggs made significant contributions in title winning teams up until the age of 39. Scholes was the same. Beckham on loan at Milan and PSG. Totti at Roma. Pirlo. The point is that if we had a stronger team from 1 - 11, Gerrard would still be a key contributor, there wouldn't be any suggestion that he was still in the team on sentiment or because he's captain and legend. If we still had Mascherano or equivalent, we wouldn't all be criticizing Gerrard's ability as a defensive midfielder. If we still had Suarez, or if Sturridge was fit, or ideally both, we wouldn't notice the fact that Gerrard never breaks beyond the strikers like he used to do to score so many goals. I was reading that Gerrard's number of assists last season was his best ever (no coincidence that he had two brilliant strikers that he was feeding the bullets to). His league goals tally was his second best ever, albeit mainly pens but still a useful contribution. And yet all you ever seem to read about is how Gerrard can't play defensive midfield. So buy a top drawer defensive midfield (I don't consider Lucas to be such). Gerrard with a Mascherano type player behind him and Henderson doing the box to box role alongside him would still be our midfield orchestrator, no doubt in my mind. If he then had Sturridge, Sterling and a decent replacement for Suarez in front of him, he'd be creating goals all over the place.

1.) 02 Jan 2015
Well said mate!

But we had over £100m in the summer to fix our problems at the back and to get a proper front man but Rodgers and the committee failed and instead decided to by almost a new starting eleven.

Sad thing is that when the next manager steps in he will not get over £100m to spend and other sad thing is Gerrard will retire without winning the EPL.

2.) 02 Jan 2015
Agreed RR. I have no doubt that it the fickle fans that have made Stevie make this decision. Best fans in the world? No chance. Shortest memory? yes. Deluded? Yes

Shame on each and every one of yous.

3.) 02 Jan 2015
02 Jan 2015 11:23:13
We'll probably never know for certain whether Rodgers still genuinely thought Gerrard was doing well enough to play, just didn't have the minerals to take him on and tell him that he'd play less, or if he did try to take him on and failed.

But for whatever reason, he's been totally mis-managed over the last year. I don't think he'd have been able to perform to his best 35+ games a season even if he was put at attacking midfield, but he still could have done a lot for us as a squad player.

What should've happened in the summer was for Rodgers to tell Gerrard that he should expect to start 15-20 games as an attacking midfielder and be used as an impact sub in another 10 or 15. And if he was happy with that, then Rodgers should've bought a defensive midfielder instead of either Lallana or Markovic.

But since that hasn't happened, I suppose this is for the best.

4.) 02 Jan 2015
Steven Gerrard has decided to leave, no one has pushed him out the door.

{Ed001's Note - I don't understand why anyone would question this decision. Sentiment has held this club back for years, Gerrard has been on the downhill slope for years, time for him to move on. More importantly, no player should be getting the wages he is on out of sentiment, that is just idiocy. Anyone that suggest fickles fans are anything to do with Gerrard going is just a fool with no idea about the lad. The fans are not pushing Gerrard out the door at all, it is the fans that have made sure he stayed as long as he has.}

5.) 02 Jan 2015
Well said, I've been trying to say the same but you have put it so much better, i also agree that lucas is not the answer if we had macharano instead the difference in our play would be huge, your spot on with the better players, if we had better players to take some of the burden of him then he could do his own thing and be the player of old, as you say lampard is doing his stuff because he has better players around him so he does not have to worry about the others, its a shame BR has bought so bad

6.) 02 Jan 2015
Edd has summarised it perfectly. Life goes on and it's not as if Stevie is skint and on a low paid contract. Really he is lucky when you compare it to a pensioner who's is retiring with only a state pension to live on. He will no doubt keep on earning for a number of years either in football or the media. Good wishes and good luck go to him and I look forward to the younger kids coming through, just as I looked forward when both carragher and Stevie were breaking through.

7.) 02 Jan 2015
I'm sorry RR but in essence you seem to be saying IF Gerrard had very good players around him he would be worth his place.
NO team should carry passengers - they should be in the team on their OWN merit. SG has not been good enough for the team for a couple of seasons at least and the fact that he has played so much tells you something about the management of the club

8.) 02 Jan 2015
Quite a few people missing my point I think. I can't respond to them all but to address the point made by Puzzled, let's look at another player at a similar stage of his career as an example.

There are very few, arguably no, midfielders in the last 20 years with Frank Lampard’s ability to score goals from midfield. He’s so good at it, that even at 36 he’s playing a key role in Man City’s title challenge. Of course, at 36 there are other aspects of his game that aren’t as sharp and effective as they were 10 years ago, but by using him in a way that maximizes what he’s good at, and minimizes the negative impact of the things he no longer does so well, City have got themselves a player that could be the difference between winning the league or not. There are a 1000 players out there that could run faster and longer than Lampard, make more tackles, track back more, win more headers, provide greater protection to the back four, but there are arguably none in the country who can almost guarantee goals from midfield like he can at the highest level. By using Lampard wisely, City get a rare and precious commodity that they can turn to when they most need it. However, would Lampard be doing the same if he’d gone to QPR? Of course he wouldn’t. He’d be playing 90 minutes every weekend, spending most of his own time out of possession in his own half, out on his feet after 70 minutes and looking like a washed up 36 year old.

It’s not the easiest thing to achieve but there are plenty of examples of top players who have been well managed to ensure they kept delivering telling contributions well into their late 30s. Dalglish for a start. Bryan Robson also became a more occasional contributor at Utd, and then the list I went through earlier. What most of them have in common is that they were at clubs where they weren’t expected to be the one man show, where there was enough quality throughout the team to enable the manager to still leverage and maximize the things that these players were brilliant at, without there being a negative impact from the things they could no longer do as well as when they were at their prime.

So we're not talking about having 10 other brilliant players just so Gerrard can stay in the team as a passenger out of sentiment or loyalty. We're talking about having a team of players who are at least good enough in their own roles to enable the things that Gerrard is brilliant at to stand out, rather than our woeful defending be attributed to the fact that Gerrard doesn't provide protection to the back four, for example.

Of course, if Gerrard is leaving because he wants to try something different or receive one final financial boost, it's all rather a moot point anyway.

Final point - with all this talk of sentiment, Gerrard being a passenger, Gerrard not being worth his place in the team, let's not forget his two goals - albeit penalties - were all that kept us from an embarassing home defeat by Leicester yesterday.

9.) 02 Jan 2015
RR the problem is though that Liverpool managers seem unable or unwilling to use Gerrard in the only profitable way he could be used. In say a 15/20 minute sub appearance when we are going for that final goal
to save or win the game.
He seems to get far, far too many minutes and other players around him have to be shuffled about to accommodate and indeed cover for him thereby affecting the whole team. I go back to the passenger analogy (and I in no way intended
to be disrespectful to one of the club's greats) City have the size and quality of squad where they CAN afford the occasional passenger who may produce the goods. We can only really count on Gerrard producing the goods when we get penalties and yes we are grateful when he does what he did against Leicester. But do we have no other penalty takers?
You brought the comparison in but Lampard is still a goalscorer whereas Gerrard is a scorer from some dead ball situations - the rest of his game is a pale shadow to what it once was