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GERRARD WILL NOT SHRINK AGAIN FROM THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL
The Times
27 November 2004
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THE longest of goodbyes continues tomorrow when Steven Gerrard lines up for Liverpool against Arsenal. The Scouser?s soul began drifting out of his boyhood club when he went to the brink of joining Chelsea in the summer and, although there were some sinister reasons for his failure of nerve that time, nothing, surely, can detain him at Anfield when this season draws to a close.
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By May it will be 15 years since Liverpool won the championship, 21 years since the last of their four European Cups and when it comes to medals on the table, top players do not trade in any other currency. Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Real Madrid are whispering in Gerrard?s ear that they are great clubs without him — with him bossing the midfield, the trophies are certain to follow.
Gerrard will be 25 by the end of the season and the quicker the game becomes, the more the top players seem to be on the down slope by 30. The midfield tyro could spend a couple more years waiting to see if Rafael Benítez can take Liverpool any higher than fourth. It is — it was — time to go.
“I?ve not been happy with the progress the club has made and for the first time in my career I?ve thought about the possibility of moving on,- Gerrard said in June. And the progress since? Well the manager has a Spanish accent rather than a French one. And Benítez has made a high-class signing in Xabi Alonso.
These are testing times for those who sit on football?s most celebrated Kop. The top of the table is so far off that they have stopped looking and even if they did glance upwards, the view would be blocked by mocking Evertonians, with David Moyes?s overachievers nine points in front.
Whatever happens against Arsenal tomorrow and away to Aston Villa next week — and the dependency on Neil Mellor as the main striker does not suggest six points — Liverpool will travel across Stanley Park on December 11 trailing their rivals. By then, they could have been dumped out of the Champions League, unless they can beat Olympiakos in the climactic group match by a two-goal margin.
Six months into his reign is not the time to be drawing definitive conclusions about Benítez, but the talents that brought him the Spanish title and Uefa Cup with Valencia are taking longer to come to the forethan many had expected. He has been cursed with injuries in attack, but sympathy would come more easily if he had not showed indifference to keeping Michael Owen.
Watching from the sidelines for the past two months after a broken metatarsal, Gerrard cannot have been persuaded that he made the right decision to spurn Chelsea. “I?ve gone with my heart,- he said, but it was heavy with turmoil.
Gerrard did everything apart from sign on the dotted line at Stamford Bridge this summer, even handing in a transfer request, which cannot have been easy for a Liverpool supporter. He watched his first game at Anfield as a six-year-old, when Jan Molby scored a hat-trick of penalties against Coventry City. The tickets were supplied by the club, the first of the inducements to make sure that he followed heroes such as John Barnes and Peter Beardsley.
He has been on the books for 15 years, but with an air of stagnation around the last days of Gérard Houllier?s reign, Roman Abramovich made him an offer that he could not refuse. At least it seemed that way, until Gerrard returned from a disappointing Euro 2004 to find out that his family had received threats that could not be dismissed lightly. And so came the press conference at which he said that he was staying , gazing wistfully elsewhere.
On the field, the captain?s commitment to Liverpool has not been doubted before or since, but as the season goes on, Gerrard?s mind will surely drift to his next destination. He can have no doubt about United?s intentions after Sir Alex Ferguson?s revealing comments six months ago. “If you were looking for the player you would replace (Roy) Keane with, it?s Gerrard, without question,- the Manchester United manager said. “He has become the most influential player in England, bar none . . . anyone would take him.-
Ferguson went on to admit that it would be “complicated- for the player to move between two such bitter rivals and a transfer abroad is not thought to appeal to Gerrard, even with three Englishmen at the Bernabéu. Arsenal want him, but the money will be a problem, given that they have not spent more than £17 million on a player and could not hope to offer the £5 million-a-year salary that Gerrard would expect.
Which brings us back to Chelsea. The squad is overstocked in midfield, but Gerrard would jump ahead of Claude Makelele, Alexei Smertin, Tiago, Scott Parker and Gérémi. Frank Lampard and Gerrard are England?s future and unless Arsenal come into money or he is willing to enrage every Koppite by heading to Old Trafford, they will surely be Chelsea?s, too — threats or not.
This story has been reproduced from today's media and is not necessarily the position of Liverpool FC.
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