by bigmick » Mon May 15, 2006 8:21 am
At the end of last season it looked like Steven Gerrard had played his last game for Liverpool. Some fools suggested that we should take the £30m plus on offer and go and buy some players who actually wanted to play for the club. Among those idiots was a strident voice, an elder statesman and one who frankly should know better. To say I called it wrong would be the understatement of the century. I've been wrong before but rarely to such an alarming degree.
After Gerrards absolutely stupendous performance on Saturday there can now surely be very few people who rate him as anything other than the best midfield player in World football. We have a couple of Brazilians work at the pub, mad-keen on the footie from Sao Paulo and according to them, the fact is accepted is accepted as a given back home. The debate there, should they run into England in the World Cup is how Gilberto Silva and the like are going to handle Gerrard. Fat Frank justifiably warrants a mention also, but it is our captain who strikes fear into their hearts.
With pace, power and precision rolled into one along with a goal threat bigger than most forwards and a heart of a Lion we truly have a superstar on our hands. I've said a couple of times earlier in the season that he would get into an all-time great Liverpool team for me and thats saying something. You'll notice that when posters slag off the managerial prowess of Sounness, it's almost always the younger people who are most vitriolic. That's because some of the oldies remember Sounness the player. He was an absolutely fantastic footballer, probably more worthy of the rhyming couplet in the Steven Gerrard song though not the part about passing the ball forty yards. He would have graced any team for me, and Gerrard is now on the level where he would not have looked out of place alongside the Scot.
Another thought on the road to Damascus. Once or twice Rafa has left Gerrard on the bench this season to hoots of derision from all and sundry, including me. When you see our captain perform like that in our final game of the season I guess it makes you realise why I run a pub for a living and he is the manager of LFC. Genius.
"se e in una bottigla ed e bianco, e latte".