Liverpool FC Forum

bigmick wrote:I for one won't ever be referring to Gerrard as Judas. He cost us nothing and has been a top player for us. His leaving has been desperately badly handled but in the fullness of time will probably be mutually beneficial.
The truth, I think, is that his agents tried playing a game of subterfuge and cloak and dagger involving certain sections of the media and Rafa's "he can be head-scout if he wants" completely wrong-footed them. This forced their hand and made Gerrard own up to the fact that he wants to leave. Clearly, behind the scenes his people have been talking to Chelsea at the very least and in all probablity, Madrid aswell. It stinks but is the way in modern football. Indeed, in a similar way we have aquired many players in the past.
I try and post things that I will stand by in a few weeks (notwithstanding my claim on the Crouch thread that Glen Johnson is a LEFT midfielder in disguise) and my feeling is that this has been inevitable for some time. I personally think that in the majority of games Gerrard has been very poor and has done nothing for morale. Let him go and take the cash but don't hate the kid, lifes too short.
On the other hand I've been saying for some time, do not be surprised when Manure come in with a huge bid. What better way for the Glazers to win the fans over? Makes perfect sense to me. If that happens, then even I will join the haters club.

Good post Mick.

I'm not bitter that he's going, to be honest. Obviously I'm gutted and in an ideal world I'd love him to stay, but seriously, if people can sit back and look at the whole dirty scenario at arm's length, they'll see what a big problem Steven Gerrard became for the club.

Last summer, immediately after the 2003/04 season ended, Gerrard is reported to have dictated to Gerrard Houllier what players he wanted at Anfield for the 2004/05 season. One of these was Joey Barton, a reasonable but ultimately average midfielder at Man City who is one of Gerrard's best mates at Liverpool. Houllier and Parry almost went out and signed Barton - I'm certain that Barton would have been signed had Houllier stayed - merely to keep Gerrard happy.

However, Houllier's own personal crisis caught up with him and when he went, that meant crisis for Gerrard. After Houllier publically criticised Gerrard after the 2002 Champions League match away to Basle Gerrard went from strength to strength. His form picked up and then improved dramatically after he was made captain in November 2003. Houllier increasingly relied on Gerrard in the 2003/04 season and no one can deny Stevie's tour de force performances in the second half of that season which dragged us into the Champions League. Gerrard became Houlier's golden boy - he had to as Houllier was desperate - and this elevated Stevie to a hitherto unprecedented level of power and influence within the club.

When Houllier went, Gerrard lobbied Parry and Moores to appoint Alan Curbishley as manager. By this stage Gerrard could freely approach both men and make demands, such was his new found level of prestige within the club. However, Parry and Moores (wisely) had their own ideas and (thankfully) stuck to their guns and appointed Rafa Benitez.

I may be wrong in this but my impression last June was that this appointment did not go down well with both Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen. Both wanted Alan Curbishley, and I suspect they were suspicious of another foreign manager, who would have radically different ideas to his predecessor, coming in and changing the club.

As soon as Rafa was appointed, he had to put his fireman's hat on and jet off to Portugal to speak to the Liverpool players on England duty. Some rumours of discontent with Gerrard started to emanate from Portugal, and looking back in hindsight, Gerrard must have started complaining a few weeks earlier, even before he went on England duty. Around the time Houllier was fired, Rick Parry gave a full page interview with the Sunday Times. He promised a big name and successful manager, and he assured Liverpool fans that Liverpool were doing their best to guarantee their future. Parry made a throw away comment which was picked up by the interviewer. The reporter was trying to get Parry to speculate on Michael Owen's future - Owen was stalling on a contract offer - but Parry refused to give anything away about Owen. However, he did speak in general terms about player power, and the diminishing value of contracts. He told the interviewer, and I'm going to paraphrase it now, that "Should Steven Gerrard, for example, walk into my office and inform me that he was unhappy and wanted to go, and we couldn't change his mind, then there would be nothing we could do." (as I said, heavily paraphrased). At the time this was read as a throw-away example, but maybe even then Parry say trouble brewing.

Benitez took over but the speculation rumbled on for most of the summer, before Steven Gerrard was presented before a press conference in which he announced that he was staying after all. Anyone that saw that conference, and the pictures of it afterwards, will clearly see the forced smiles on all concerned, none more so than Gerrard himself, who frowned and winced throughout the proceedings. There were rumours abound that death threats had been made and personally I believe myself that a large degree of pressure was put on Gerrard's family, and they had a big influence in making him change his mind.

The speculation died down for a while, particularly after Gerrard broke his foot against Man UTD and was out of the team for a few weeks. While he was out, Xabi Alonso started to perform wonders in midfield, and Jamie Carragher magnificent in defence. Benitez spoke more and more of the merits of both these players, and as anyone who has been to a Liverpool game will testify, Alonso was Benitez' brain on the pitch, with Xabi running to the sidelines to take instructions from Rafa at crucial periods during matches. Gerrard eventually returned, but Liverpool's performances fluctuated badly, and we were miles off the pace in the Premiership and just about - barely - able to keep our heads above water in Europe.

Late last winter Liverpool played Portsmouth in a midweek Premiership match at Anfield. It was a game in hand and a chance for Liverpool to make up some ground on Everton. Late in the game Stevie scored a magnificent goal with an exocet like shot. He ran to the corner of the Kop and was clearly picked up by the cameras as shouting, repeatedly, "Whos the man? Whos the man?" After his celebration ended and he trotted back towards his own half, he was clearly seen to make a gesture towards the directors box. Some clearly picked up on this as a deliberate message to the club's hierachy - Gerrard himself later commented that it was a dig at the media, a comment that was about as plausible as Jose Mourinho's later comment after the Carling Cup final. More was to follow: right at the death substitute Josemi was badly caught out of position on the right, Portsmouth swung a cross in which Dudek flapped at (badly) allowing Lua Lua to score the equalizer. Gerrard just stood in the centre of the pitch, shaking his head repeatedly.

As the winter wore on, Gerrard's body langauge became more telling. He started pulling out of tackles and allowed opposing midfielders to ghost past him, and he was often guilty of - scandelously - not tracking his man back. In the Man UTD game at Anfield Gerrard challenged Keane for a ball in midfield, saw Keane win it before pulling up and allowing Keane to press on (in a move which a few moments later saw Keane hit the Liverpool crossbar with a shot). Gerrard didn't pull up because of a torn hamstring but of of heartlessness. he simply hadn;t the stomach for the fight.

The nadir was just before - and 80 minutes of - the crucial Olympiakos match. The day before Gerrard disgraced the shirt with comments that were not befitting of a Liverpool player, let alone captain of this great club. When asked once again by the media abput his future as a Liverpool player, Gerrard decided to meet the question, rather than avoid it as he had done so many times earlier in the year, and he spoke candidly. He admitted that he had considered leaving the club the previous summer, but had decided to give it "another year" to see how things "panned out". The interviewer asked him to elaborate on this. Gerrard told the interviewer that him staying at Liverpool depended on Liverpool proving to him that their ambitions matched his own. The interviewer asked whether they had matched his ambitions. Gerrard went on to speak about the manager's success in Spain, but added that things were not going to plan this season in England. The interviewer than asked what would happen if Olympiakos knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League. Gerrard said that if that happened, he would reconsider his position at the club. He said that he "did not want to play in the UEFA Cup" (the competition Liverpool would have entered had Olympiakos beaten them) as he had "already won that". He hinted that were Liverpool knocked out, he would speak to the manager and chairman.

The comments were disgraceful as it was the most important game of the season for Liverpool. Rafa Benitez was under huge pressure as he was missing a lot of players with injury and some quarters were calling for his head. Gerrard's comments to the media intensified the pressure and put Liverpool in an almost impossible position.

That day I posted on this forum that I thought that Gerrard's comments were totally unacceptable and out of keeping with the traditions of our club. That was a position I maintained all season, even in the immediate aftermath of Istanbul. I described Gerrard as a "huge problem" in the old Official Gerrard Thread, a comment that brought criticism from some. However, I continue to stand by it.

Gerrard received all the plaudits after the Olympiakos match with his brilliant goal, but people have short memories. His performance in the 80 minutes or so preceding his goal was just about the most unprofessional I have ever seen from a Liverpool player in a major game. He was non existant in the first half, before kicking everything that moved in the second. In a crazed, frenzied 3 minute spell early in the second half Gerrard committed two of the most shocking fouls I have ever seen Liverpool players commit at Anfield. One was a terrible lunging and blatantly late charge on the Olympiakos right back as he attempted to clear a ball under the centenary stand. The second was worse: a Olmypiakos player beat Gerrard to a 50-50 ball in the centre of midfield and attempted to glide past Gerrard. As he did so Gerrard raised his attacking foot from ankle level the whole way up to the guys upper thigh, raking the inside of it with his studs. It was a shocking tackle - as was the first - and in any other game Gerrard would have walked for either. Instead, the referee, with a baying home crowd on his back, panicked and allowed Gerrard remain on the field. We went on to win the game, but had Gerrard been sent off, and we all know that he should have, then there would have been no Istanul.

As the season wore on, Gerrard's body language in games got worse, with a scowl and frown common place as our away form remained poor. He kept dropping comments to the media about "waiting and seeing" and qualifying for the CL as pre-equisites about staying.

Then there was the miracle of Istanbul, and for a few weeks, we all believed that Gerrard would stay, to lead us into a glorious new era, particularly after his comments on the night in question and immediately afterwards. However, today he says that he has decided to go, that he had decided to stay, but the "events" of the past 6 weeks had changed his mind.

By "events" I persume Steven is talking about 1) Liverpool's tardiness in offering him a new contract, 2) rumours that Benitez privately wanted to sell him and 3) the lack of big names arriving at Liverpool and Benitez and Parry probably telling Stevie last night that no big names would be arriving.

Well, the way I see it is as follows:

1. After Istanbul, Stevie disappeared on holidays. When he returned, his advisor from SFX was away, so Liverpool had no time to sit down to speak with him until last week (the end of June....barely a month after we won the European cup). He cannot accuse Liverpool of stalling as Benitez has confirmed that a contract proposal was put to Stevie 3 times last season, and every time Stevie asked to wait. Liverpool also dealt with Didi Hamman first as Didi's contract was due to expire, and they could not afford to waste anytime otherwise Didi would have no choice but to speak to 3rd parties. Of course, they could have dealt with Stevie - who had two years left on his contract and who had indicated that he wanted to stay - immediately, before telling Didi "We'll get back to you later on in the summer", but that would hardly have been fair, would it? Of course, in Stevie's world, some players are simply more important than others.

2). Again, see no. 1. Liverpool offered Gerrard a contract last season. Benitez spoke to the press a thousand times about his desire to keep Gerrard. He famously said "If we keep Steven, we don't need investment as keeping him will mean I don't have to spend £30million on other players".

3). The worst of all. Gerrard looks at Zenden, Barragan, Reina and Gonzalez, and says "Boss, these guys are rubbish. I have absolutely no confidence in their ability to advance the club and by proxy, I have no confidence in you as manager as you are responsible for signing rubbish".


Look, Steven Gerrard was bad news for our club. He undermined the manager all season and made our Chief Executive's life hell. He spoke of his fondness and admiration for David Moores, but all along he strung him along, and he ultimately stabbed him in the back. He was offfered a £100,000 a week to captain the European champions and he said "Not enough". He watches 4 new players come to the club - 3 of them young men making by far and away the biggest changes in their lives - and he goes "rubbish".

We are better off without him. Xabi Alonso is a better player and in 2 years time Xabi will have matured into a midfielder so good and so complete that he will have completely put Gerrard into the shade. Next season we will have no superstars, but a squad of talented but understated players who will give all to the club. We will become Liverpool Football Club once again, and will no longer pander to Stevie G "Who da man".

Gerrard will go to Madrid or Chelsea and there will be more bitterness, and the media (Mark Lawernson first among them) will comment that Gerrard leaving will be the final nail in our coffin as a big club (er, earth to , we are the European Champions!) but it will not be the end. Hell no.

Next season will be the second stage in a remarkable turn around for this club. We won't win the Premiership, but our team will make serious waves. From now on I don't care what Gerrard does - if he goes to Spain I wish him every success over there. So long as Liverpool are in good health - and with Rafa Benitez at the helm they always will be - well, then thats just about good enough for me.

dawson99 wrote:i still want xavi here to partner alonso... maybe eh