Steven Gerrard

[Joe Le Taxi]

I know he's 28 now, and he's been fantastic for years, but i really think we're going to start seeing the best Gerrard we ever have.

 

Agreed. He is coming to the stage in his career now where he is at the height of his skills and the remainder of this season and the next, we will see the real Gerrard and, despite what has been happening off the pitch recently, his performance on it was great. Gutted he didn't get a goal though.

[Herp McDerp]

When he does retire we're gonna be a so sad. Some on here clearly have it in for him after the Chelsea episode, probably the same ones who forget that Owen scored 100 plus goals before fucking of to Madrid. Both of 'em carried the club for years. And to all those who're letting nostalgia get in the way of common sense, please stop being so blinkered, Gerrard will go down as our best ever player, if he isn't already. Not knocking the king, but he always had quality arround him, Gerrard had the likes of Diao, Traore and Biscan and has singlehandedly dragged the club out of the shit countless times. To say that he's nowhere near no.1 is a little rich imo.

 

All that aside, has been playing really well recently, I'm already drooling at the prospect of him in the second striker role behind Torres. Benitez gets nowhere near enough praise for converting Gerrard from a Veira-esque player to one of the best attacking midfielders in the world.

 

 

 

Edit: Seems rude, not meant to be.

[mgw100]

I agree with the pro Stevie G sentiments expressed in this thread. I don't think they get expressed enough

[sir roger]

Been watching from the late 60's & Steven is top 2 with Kenny.

 

If I had my arm twisted I would probably go for KMD as tops , but with the important proviso that I can only imagine how brilliant Steven would have been if played constantly in the position he plays now & with the support of a team that was steam-rollering every other team in sight as we were in the 80's.

[RobbieOR]

Stevie isnt the fastest weve ever had, not the greatest goalscorer, not the best tackler not the best leader and there is a number of other things he's not the best at ever but have all these traits been built up in one man before? I think not, thats what makes him for me one of the greatest ever up with there with Dalglish.

[Section_31]

He's awesome in that free role, credit to Rafa for putting him there again and freeing him from his more defensive duties (despite what the likes of tactical genius 'it's over' Andy Gray might say)

 

His run and chipped ball to Keane in the box was almost Zidane-esque I thought.

[Torvald Utne]

That was truly heartwarming stuff. You knew that he would do the right thing and set up Nando.

 

couldn't quite believe the keeper didn't know it too, if I was their keeper I think I would have just ran straight towards torres leaving the goal open because it was blatantly obvious he was gonna lay it off.

[paulb1]

i would go as far to say that stevie is in the top 10 players of all time. i know on face value it sounds ridiculous but name me a better all round player who's got what hes got tackling, passing, vision, shooting, scoring, heading, speed, stength, bravery and skill. the one thing he lacked was brain and rafa has brought that into his game

[Paul]

I think it's difficult with Gerrard to judge him merely by the context of a game when the temptation is to judge him by his own standards. I felt he should have scored at least one yesterday, if not two; I therefore didn't include him in my top three. However, I think the point is a good one. I was amazed by how many people didn't have him as MotM against Newcastle when I thought he put in the best performance outside of a final I've seen from him in a long time. In short, he is world clas by any definition.

 

That said, I can't put him above Dalglish, Barnes or Fowler in my all-time list (although Robbie is looking vulnerable simply because he was only at his peak for three seasons before injury robbed him of his true brilliance). All three of those players had an element of genius to their games and in Kenny's case, not just an element. That's the one thing that Gerrard doesn't quite have, in my view. However, I don't want to make this sound negative because he really is a great, great player.

 

In fact, I hope you'll indulge me by letting me copy my post (in reply to someone else's point) from the match thread onto here as this is where it should really be (I wasn't aware of this thread when I wrote it):

 

Gerrards a class act. Any red who still buys into that Stevie Me bollocks is an idiot.

 

I think time provides a lot of context with regards to Gerrard. It's quite clear to me now that the player who, frankly, took the piss out of his fans for two successive summers was little more than a kid, both on and off the pitch. He'd had Gerrard Houllier up his arse for the best part of his last season and was, by all accounts, having a significant say in team selection. Also the media loved him after the Liverpool 5 Germany 1 thing and he had the world at his feet. Who wouldn't have a swell head in their early 20s in such circumstances? As is now clear, he couldn't cope with all that and was quite obviously being pulled in two directions: the ego/big star/this is the way all top players have to be bollocks was pulling him towards Chelsea while the quiet home body from Huyton wanted to stay.

 

Since that debacle was finally resolved, he's changed quite significantly, from my perspective. On the pitch, he's twice the player he was pre-Rafa - and that's saying something, because he was fucking brilliant before. He's significantly increased his goal contribution and he now plays much of his game in the final third where a player of his talent should be most of the time. He's also grown into the captaincy and exudes real authority these days, rather than bluster and swagger disguised as it. His press statements tend to hit just the right note and he is clearly a big influence on the other players judging by the way they treat him on the pitch.

 

Off the pitch he's had to deal with stuff, both positive and negative, that has made him grow up. The break in at his house must have been hellish for such a clearly besotted family man, yet - much like the nasty rumours about his missus - it never affected his game. He's rarely out on the tiles and seems happy to devote himself to two things: his career and his girls (I remember how soppy he was with his daughters on that Sky thing he did - he genuinely is a family man).

 

In short, there was a time when Stevie Me was exactly who he was. However, that character is long dead. What we've got now is arguably the best player in the world who is almost entirely focused on winning the league for Liverpool like the fantastic professional he is. If that weren't true, we wouldn't have seen so many opinion pieces from journalists and ex-pros over the last week or so expressing their surprise at seeing him involved in this assault case.

 

I despised Steven Gerrard for quite a long time for the way he betrayed us fans, but those feelings subsided a while back. Now I'm proud to see one of the best players and professionals we've ever had captaining our club and leading us towards the title. That kid who let us all down is long gone; it's a grown man wearing the armband these days and I really fucking hope he gets all he deserves this season. No player has worked harder for it.

[Guest LFD]

I think Stevie has shown us plenty of times he has that element of genius in his game.

 

The second goals against West Ham was a touch of genius in my opinion.

[Mr.SB]

You know why he set Nando up? He has the same feelings for Torres as we all do on TLW. He lusts for that goal celebration hug I tell you.

[shanks59]

Gerrard's one touch passing, alone, is genius .. :whistle:

[Spy Bee]

I think his game has really come on lately. It seems like everything he tries to do - he does. His control is very reminiscent of John Barnes. He kills it or puts it exactly where he wants it first time. He's got absolutely everything. I think he's easily the best player in the world and we are very lucky to have him.

 

It's also great to see him being such a good captain now. He deserves to lead us to the league and if he doesn't get injured I think he's got every chance. He knows Torres is going to be important too & it was very clever to get him back scoring goals like he did.

 

I think he's the only player who regularly makes me gasp with his brilliance, and while I know where Paul is coming from, I think that is genius.

[Guest TK-421]

It's as strange as people wanting Heskey back.

 

I'm not sure I've ever said I want Heskey back and whether or not I do is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I've always said, recently, that I'd prefer us to get Owen. If you're referring to my discussion with Ted it was more a case of looking at what Heskey could offer and why Rafa is supposedly interested in signing him.

 

Regarding the "touch of genius" thing I think it's pretty hard to tell with Gerrard. You could say he doesn't have the creative vision of players like Bergkamp or Zola, but then occasionally he does produce moments reminiscent of those kind of players. Alternatively he is so good in almost every facet of the game you could say that is genius in itself.

[Kevin D]

He's class. He simply has no equal in English football. When we win the league he'll deservedly take a lot of the plaudits as he's been instrumental.

 

Last season he got 11 league goals but my gripe was that only 4 of them came from open play but now he's managed to make himself more prolific in open play and we're a far better team for it.

 

In regards to creative vision, don't think for a minute just because Gerrard has the pace and power to do things at such a frantic pace that he lacks guile. Through balls are one of his many specialties and even having a look at yesterday his creativity is never in question.

 

I also think he's grown into his captaincy and I think he's now by far the best man for the job , which given the leadership qualities of the likes of Carragher is saying something.