Steven Gerrard – He Wasn’t Even That Good AnywaySteven Gerrard made his debut on the 29th of November, 1998. You could tell at the time that he wasn’t going to be that good. By then Michael Owen was already banging the goals in for England, and there was only a few months between them in age. So even at that early stage, he'd have to just get on with it and thank his lucky stars that he'd somehow been picked for Liverpool's first team.
He didn’t have enough discipline to play centre mid, really. Always fucking bombing from box to box. Like a headless chicken. Scoring one end, then making a crunching tackle on the edge of our box the next. Completely lacked the ability to just sit and hold. He'll never be Roy Keane or Patrick Vieira, they used to say. Lucky for Steven, he had the chance to play a few other positions too, so after a while, people stopped noticing that he just wasn't very good at being a holding player.
Rash in the tackle too, wasn’t he? Remember that one on Naismith? Yeah, he was only a kid, but he should have known better.
Didn’t have the positional ability to play in defence. Not clever enough. Too greedy. He fucking bossed AC Milan from right back, but that’s hardly the point, is it? He wouldn’t have played there any other time. Had an ego. Everyone said it. Thought he was the man. Said as much at one point. I'll get back to that later.
Got made Captain at age 23. The lucky bastard! Captaining your hometown club at the age of 23. Problem is, he just wasn't vocal enough as a captain, was he? Couldn't hear him on the pitch. It's one thing to "lead by example" and be the only shining light in a sea of shite at times, but for the love of god, can't you give your players a bollocking every now and then? Our lot were scared of Souness. Could never say the same about Gerrard. People talk about humility and quality and understanding what it means to pull on that red shirt, but we all know your ability as a captain comes from your ability to shout louder than anyone else.
Anyway. We let him carry on as captain, what with him being a local lad and all. Played on the right for a season or two after that. Kept drifting in. GET TO THE FUCKING LINE, STEVEN. GET A CROSS IN. YOU’RE A FUCKING WINGER, LAD. Fair play, it was Rafa who stuck him out there to rot, but fucking hell, get the ball in the box. We’re in England, not Spain. None of this continental shit. He might have scored 23 goals in a season from the right, but a winger should be providing assists, not scoring the goals himself. Selfish.
And don’t get me started about losing his fucking head. Sent off after 10 minutes in the derby, wasn’t he? Yeah, he might have scored the odd important goal, when no other fucker would step up to the plate, but he was always getting sent off. Big games. Discipline is what you need, not passion. He never understood that.
Then he almost went and fucking left. The ungrateful twat. After all we’d done for him! Put up with him being shit all over the shop. Local lad comes in, we give him a chance, let him play for us, let him captain us, let him single-handedly drag us to the greatest nights of recent memory. And he almost left! Felt unwanted, he reckoned. As if! If you think you're too good for us lad, off you go to Chelsea. Apparently he only stayed in the end because someone sent the lads 'round. Typical.
So we gave him another chance. Selfless and forgiving as we are. Let him play as some new fangled attacking midfielder thing. The greedy bastard would shoot at every opportunity. Unless he had Torres there, when he’d find him almost telepathically, and we’d score. Stevie barely deserved it, and I think if we're being honest, it was mostly down to Torres anyway. But blood is thicker than water and all that, and he might not have been very good, but by this point he was sort-of like your younger cousin Deano who is forever fucking stuff up, but he's family, so you help him out anyway.
Fair play to Steven though, he did score some absolute SCREAMERS. Problem was he could never get his celebrations right. "I'm the fucking man"... Cringe. YOU'RE LIVERPOOL'S MAN, AND DON'T YOU FORGET IT, KID. The state on him! If that's his attitude he can do one! And remember that time he bit the badge? Didn't even kiss it. Bit it! I remember it well. Total disrespect for the liverbird. No-one could believe it.
Did you ever see him play on the left for England? Awful. Time after time. Imagine that getting over a hundred caps? Shocking. Captained England and all, somehow. Madness when you think that he didn't scream at his players enough, like John Terry or someone. From a Liverpool perspective, he sacrificed himself for his shitty country, with shitty players. Could have tried focusing on the Reds, couldn’t he? Never had his priorities straight, that one.
We won a few cups here and there. Played quite well on occasion, too. Mostly due to other players, but we had some success nonetheless. Then it all went rapidly downhill with those two fucking cowboys, Hicks and Gillett. They tried to bleed us dry. We could have expected a local lad to speak up for the club - his employer - and to kick up a fuss, but he never did. We were fuming with him. He reckoned he didn't believe in washing the club's dirty laundry in public or something like that, but we all knew he just didn't care. Players picking up their paycheques never do, do they? They're not like us. Nope. You'd never see Steven Gerrard in the away end, cheering on the team. You'd never see him putting the club before himself.
Eventually we got rid of the leeches. It was a new era. The Roy Hodgson Era. Apparently Gerrard was the one who hired him. Wanted an English manager instead of one of those European types. Unfortunately, it turns out that owls don't make very good football managers, and it all went to shit pretty quickly. Where's "the fucking man" now, Steven? Anyway. Eventually he single-handedly made Roy Hodgson’s reign untenable. Missed a penalty. Blazed it. After all The Good Man™ had done for him, as well. Got him the sack. It was probably for the best in the end, but don't let that absolve Gerrard of any blame. We knew what his game was.
More recently he's just not been that good because he's too old. His legs had gone by the start of last season. Got more assists than anyone in the league, but it was all down to Suarez, really. That and corners. If he wasn't on set pieces, it would have been obvious he wasn't up to it. And you know what, even when he was on set pieces, he wasn't that good. Should have been in the box instead. This year he's our top scorer, but it's only because everyone else is crap. Same old story. Fans know best.
Eventually the record books will show that made 710 appearances and scored 186 goals for the Reds. He's our fifth highest goalscorer, which is remarkable for someone who was such a crap striker. He's played for the Reds more times than anyone other than Carra and Cally. History will show that he captained Liverpool FC more times than anyone else, EVER.
But what history will never tell you, is that he was fucking shite in goal.
Steven Gerrard? He wasn’t even that good anyway.
