I agree to disagree. Stevie will recover a few millions with his shirt sales. So fuck the salary, I am not paying it. IF he is on 6m a year and recovers 3m in shirt sales then that good enough. For 3m/year i will take Stevie any day into the team, in fact I will take him even at double that considering our circumstances. Some things cannot be valued like what pull Stevie has in getting other stars into the team. What he does to the profile of the club in terms of it image and publicity. I like your posts except in regards to Stevie. He brings intrinsic value which you cannot judge by just using numbers.
The vast majority of supporters buy a shirt and have their favourite player put on the back of it. If Gerrard wasn't here they would get another players name on it. As it goes the longer a fit Steven Gerrard plays at the level Stevie has played for the last decade the better as far as I am concerned.
I just think giving him a long term contract before he has fully proven his fitness and his ability to stay fit is a gamble we simply didn't need to make at this time. I would of rather trusted Stevie's word when he says he wants to finish his career at Liverpool and used the money to strengthen the squad in this window.
With the implications of the fair play rules we have a finite amount of money available, we need to spend that money wisely and giving big contracts to players over 30 years of age is a gamble. Even more so when you renew a players contract 18 months before it's up. We have gambled that in 18 months time Stevie will still have a level of fitness that justifies the contract we have just given him.
Gerrard has been a truly World Class Footballer but players careers aren't necessarily linear some players decline slowly and others simply fall off a cliff. Who knows what will happen to Stevie. There are as many Shevchenko's, Ronaldo's and Ronaldhino's as there are Gary Mac's or Ryan Giggs, what is undeniable is that Premier league finds players out quicker than any other League.
I would love to know what the Club actually gains out of this yesterday we had a committed Steven Gerrard who wanted to end his career at Liverpool today we have exactly the same thing but have more than likely committed the Club to a pretty big chunk of our future earnings. You tie players to long term contracts to protect your investment I honestly don't see how Stevie fits into that category.
