Topic: Liverpool in talks with Steven Gerrard over return to Anfield

[Davidbowie]

It's always baffled me that Gerrard has only ever praised the owl Hodgson and seems to have a lot of respect for him.

Considering he had to play under him and be part of the most depressingly shite football LFC have ever played you would think he might have commented on that or even on Hodgson's constant stream of foot in mouth quotes. But no.

[Broad Spectrum]

Shocked. Fucking rat Stevie.

"Rafa made a lot of decisions with himself in mind. He wanted power and control. I didn't like it. Fighting with the board, other managers and the press..."

Yet...

"For me, the ideal situation would obviously have been for Mourinho to have managed Liverpool."

...

[dirkster]

Be careful Stevie. You're burning a few bridges here.

[whtwht]

It's always baffled me that Gerrard has only ever praised the owl Hodgson and seems to have a lot of respect for him.

Considering he had to play under him and be part of the most depressingly shite football LFC have ever played you would think he might have commented on that or even on Hodgson's constant stream of foot in mouth quotes. But no.

No way could he have a go at the current England manager.

[mikeb58]

http://www.stevengerrardfoundation.org

The 'fuckin rats' foundation for disadvantaged children, which has raised money for Claire's Hospice. Always going back to his old school in Huyton, unannounced with signed Jerseys etc, the bastard.

[MaschHead]

http://www.stevengerrardfoundation.org

The 'fuckin rats' foundation for disadvantaged children, which has raised money for Claire's Hospice. Always going back to his old school in Huyton, unannounced with signed Jerseys etc, the bastard.

That he does great things for the community doesn't mean he might have a personality that people don't like, as more and more of the new book comes out, opinions about him might change for some people.

[Samie]

Love how some only turned up here in this thread with the Rafa thing coming out. Couldn't be bothered  before that could ya?

[elsewhere]

'Steven Gerrard is wrong to say I never liked him at Liverpool. Out of the respect that I have for Stevie and for the value and appreciation I have for him, and for Liverpool and the supporters, I think it's best to just let it pass. I have read the quotes and I believe he is wrong,' Benitez told Spanish television.

'He has brought out a book and now I'm the Real Madrid manager, that sells.'

so classy by Rafa

That being said, I know i will buy his book once it's out.

[lindylou100]

Love how some only turned up here in this thread with the Rafa thing coming out. Couldn't be bothered  before that could ya?

Controversy creates discussion, that's life.

[kcbworth]

So he didnt like rafa.

Big fucking whoop. Keane didnt get along with red nose reindeer.

Sturridge didnt get along with suarez.

Yet they had a great working relationship. Football like any business has their own internal politics and stevie just wanted to tell his side of his story. Not saying hes right on his accounts, but its his book. Rafa could write one book one day and clear his side for his story. You lot gonna turn on rafa too?

He didnt show any disrespect to the club at all. Only to certain people hes worked with. Get a grip.

Big fucking whoop ?

What if he was complicit in removing Rafa due to being listened to more than he should be the brass ?

[kcbworth]

By the way, I don't see Gerrard's texting of potential targets as a big deal of all, at least he's not appealing to the UN for crimes against humanity like that fucking lot at Barca do.

No... but saying publicly that he and Rodgers thought Kroos was a longshot. That's pretty poor form :@

[Fiasco]

In defence of Stevie, had he released this book and been quiet about a lot of issues and not put his feelings out people would be saying 'Fuck sake, why release a book and not tell us about the inner workings of the club'.

[stevensr123]

Big fucking whoop ?

What if he was complicit in removing Rafa due to being listened to more than he should be the brass ?

Massive IF mate.

Bunch of fannies in here, He has an opinion, And he wants to sell his book. Who gives a shit?. Our best player ever and has done a shit load for this city. But people are changing their opinions of him for a comment he made about Rafa? Really?

[rowan_d]

I still love him, but I really dislike the lack of appreciation he seems to have for Rafa, when he is the one who got the best out of Gerrard and was in charge of the best team Gerrard ever played in.

Its something I just don't understand. Surely at some point if you're in his shoes, you have to look back and think 'wait a minute, those managers I got on with never came close to doing as much for my career as the one I didn't, maybe I should cut him some slack'

[marko35s]

So he didnt like rafa.

Big fucking whoop. Keane didnt get along with red nose reindeer.

Sturridge didnt get along with suarez.

Yet they had a great working relationship. Football like any business has their own internal politics and stevie just wanted to tell his side of his story. Not saying hes right on his accounts, but its his book. Rafa could write one book one day and clear his side for his story. You lot gonna turn on rafa too?

He didnt show any disrespect to the club at all. Only to certain people hes worked with. Get a grip.

If he 'just wanted to tell his side of the story' the book would be free...
It's all a bit rich for someone that touts 'The Liverpool Way' to then release the literary equivalent of a gossip mag or a big brother highlights show.

[Caligula?]

Why can't everyone just accept that Stevie might not have warmed to Rafa as a person, and that they didn't partake in the social exchange of pleasantries over alcohol outside of their professional lives? Obviously they had a great professional relationship and respect one another to this day, but none of us knew what it was like to walk into Melwood day after day or even the dressing room before and after a match with Rafa in charge. Rafa did seem a bit cold and distant. There are plenty of people in my life that I have nothing against and respect, but just haven't warmed to and never will. That's life.

Gerrard hasn't outright disrespected him, he's just given his opinions. And is obviously trying to sell a book.

[The 1989 Brit Awards]

But people are changing their opinions of him for a comment he made about Rafa? Really?

He's still my favorite ever player and the reason I started supporting Liverpool.

But I could hazard a guess: Gerrard's made no secret of him wanting to manage. Quotes like the ones he provides give a bit of insight into his football mind, which like I said in another thread, go much more in the way of a Tim Sherwood, than a good manager ("get stuck in" philosophy, emotion over reason, etc.)... some people could be worried about that, if he intends to manage Liverpool!

What Hodgson, Houllier, and Rodgers have had in common, in a way, is that they all catered, generally, to Gerrard's wishes (in regards of where to play him and when). Benitez didn't, yet he was the one who proved to be the most successful of them all. I'm not sure how to explain it well, but it seems to me with the latest and also with past comments, he always kinda acknowledges Benitez but goes right ahead to praise the other three much more. He accepts he was more successful with Benitez but then he makes a point in saying he thought he was better as a CM (notwithstanding how much more productive he was on the right wing or as a pseudo-second striker in 2006 or 2008).

I posted a lot about not liking Stevie in his apparently favorite (at the time) deep-lying playmaker role for his last seasons (due to his lack of legs to do the required defensive work)... Rodgers put him there and that probably meant for him "great man-managing skills", mmm ...



anyway, my opinion

[Broad Spectrum]

http://www.stevengerrardfoundation.org

The 'fuckin rats' foundation for disadvantaged children, which has raised money for Claire's Hospice. Always going back to his old school in Huyton, unannounced with signed Jerseys etc, the bastard.

Completely irrelevant. I could bring up all the donations Rafa has made to both the city and the Hillsborough campaigns down the years but you know, that would be irrelevant mate.

If someone on here wrote in the Rafa thread or the Mourinho thread they'd rather Mourinho was in charge instead of Rafa during those years, they'd start a riot. It's just a ridiculous opinion that's clearly manifested itself over the years because of his bitterness and resentment towards Rafa.

Anyway I've always said these books are best left for once the player has long since retired. Voice all their opinions after the end of their career, not whilst they're still playing.

[bravoco]

What Hodgson, Houllier, and Rodgers have had in common, in a way, is that they all catered, generally, to Gerrard's wishes (in regards of where to play him and when). Benitez didn't, yet he was the one who proved to be the most successful of them all. I'm not sure how to explain it well.

I think that's a pretty telling point actually.

[Broad Spectrum]

Also, I thought he wasn't starting on the BT coverage until after Christmas? Mad he's in the UK doing punditry work on a Tuesday/Wednesday when he's got a match over there on Sunday!

[Hash91]

I was one of those that thought it was time for Rafa to move on at the time. I've since accepted it was the worst possible thing that could have happened.

That will live with me forever, disgusted with myself.

Same with me RK

[_00_deathscar]

Thanks for that.
Lest we forget... there was some interesting debate in one of the political threads about Keir Hardy going up against Parliament as a lone voice to establish Labour principles. Ferguson was untouchable at that time and nobody dared to say anything against him. If they did he could launch broadsides himself or get one of his cronies to do it. He had banned the fucking BBC for chrissakes! Rafa stood up to him and his undue influence, calmly - not ranting (though anyone could have been forgiven for getting angry in the circumstances). He'll always have my respect for that and we should never buy into the cronyism and revisionism that was used to try and put down the real threat that was Liverpool under Rafa Benitez.

Maybe I'm being paranoid or bigging up Rafa and LFC during that period, but it really does feel like that at times. We were a huge, huge threat to 'the establishment' and the Russian rouble, and Ferguson used his cronies and the media to drive Rafa out of LFC.

It's simple really - Wenger (although recently/later admitting he respects Rafa), Fergsuon and Mourinho all have had squabbles - minor and major - with Rafa Benitez.

Can you imagine any of them going head to head with Hodgson or Rodgers? No. It's all pally pally.

[_00_deathscar]

In defence of Stevie, had he released this book and been quiet about a lot of issues and not put his feelings out people would be saying 'Fuck sake, why release a book and not tell us about the inner workings of the club'.

No - we want to know about the inner workings of the club. Notice how he's still kept quiet on H+G and the owners? But hey, laying into them is "not the Liverpool way" apparently.

[_00_deathscar]

I don't understand why people are taking the 'it's his opinion' line.

I, and I suspect many others, have absolutely NO problem with Gerrard claiming Rafa is cold, distant, hates him etc etc etc. He's already acknowledged he built the best LFC side, and that he's the best manager he's worked with and took his game to new heights.

I DO have a problem with Steven Gerrard calling Rafa Benitez out for defending Liverpool the club, and Liverpool the city, against people like Ferguson and H+G - especially when Gerrard himself has stayed quiet on the issue (particularly regarding H+G).

It is even more galling that he then insinuates it's "not the Liverpool way", while bringing out a gossip book - and CONTINUING TO STAY QUIET DURING AND EVEN NOW, ON A PERIOD IN LFC HISTORY WHERE WERE IT NOT FOR RAFA FUCKING BENITEZ CALLING OUT THOSE FRAUDSTERS, WE MOST LIKELY WOULD NOT HAVE A CLUB TO TALK ABOUT.

[plura]

Think there was a discussion last season on whether Balotelli was a committee signing or not?

It seems like it was Rodger's call then.

Well don't try too much to actually convince people of this, even if it came straight from the horse's mouth.

[Coolie High]

I think that's a pretty telling point actually.

Its not telling at all, it tells is that Benitez is a better manager than the aforementioned and he managed to get Gerrard in the peak of his powers opposed to Houllier who had him from a teen to when he was just about to come of age, Hodgson who had injury prone Gerrard and Rodgers who had an ageing one.

And to be hoenst we got to as close as winning the title with Rodgers supposedly catering to him, as we did in Rafas time.

[jason67]

Regarding 2008/09.......

Another amazing post mate, well done.

[Chakan]

Regarding 2008/09, since Steven Gerrard has brought it up: it’s disappointing, if undeniably predictable (given that the frosty relationship between player and manager which seems to be so faithfully outlined in the book was obvious for most of their time together) to read him make so much of something that meant so little, but let us be fair and even-handed here at least. He is of course entitled to his opinion without being insulted, but so are we. The quotes I’ve seen so far show clear evidence of tunnel vision. I wonder does he acknowledge in his book, for example, the fact that he and Fernando Torres were only able to line up together in 14 out of Liverpool’s 38 League games that season, or make the comparison to Manchester United who were able to call on Wayne Rooney (signed for £25m as a teenager four years earlier), Cristiano Ronaldo (on his way to obliterating the world transfer record in an £80m+ move to Real Madrid), Dimitar Berbatov (signed for £32m that season) and Carlos Tevez (a £30m+ player who, as I recall, eventually left Old Trafford primarily because he wasn’t guaranteed first-team football)? I doubt it, but it might reflect better on him if he did.

Rafa Benítez admittedly made some poor signings, as virtually every manager does, particularly towards the end of his time at Liverpool (but, I would argue, without sufficient finances to paper over those mistakes), and he had the option to keep £19m Robbie Keane that January as cover despite him clearly never really fitting into the team. But when you can’t pay Peter Crouch and Craig Bellamy enough to keep them happy sitting on the bench (both subsequently stated that the issue of first-team football is why they left Anfield) and you’re left with no choice but to find replacements in the same bargain bin populated by a blonde, ponytailed Ukrainian with a penchant for denim and a timid, ineffectual French youngster, the two signed for a combined fee of £1.5m, then losing the title by four points (and building a team that would ultimately be ranked number one in Europe around the same time) seems like a minor miracle in itself, especially when you’re only able to field the most lethal strikeforce in the League (arguably in Europe at the time), the fulcrum of your team, in less than 40 per cent of your games and you’re going up against a club with four of the best attacking talents in the world to choose between (it’s often called Ferguson’s second great team for a reason: because it was great).

These are factors that render connections between the infamous pre-Stoke press-conference in January 2009 and Liverpool not winning the title a few months later thoroughly moot. We have seen the statistics that Liverpool’s points per game and goals per game statistics actually improved afterwards, but even that doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that when Liverpool won 4-1 at Old Trafford in March 2009, Manchester United had Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Berbatov and Nani sitting on the bench. Liverpool, by contrast, had the relatively inexperienced Lucas Leiva deputising for the absent Xabi Alonso, 36 year-old Sami Hyypia filling in for Alvaro Arbeloa at short notice and Jamie Carragher moving to right-back where he hadn’t played regularly for five years or more. Manchester United had a marked advantage over Liverpool in terms of squad depth, and whether you blame the manager’s signings for that or the amount of money made available to him for transfers (and I personally would lean more towards the latter than the former, though both were undeniable influences), it was this factor that eventually saw Liverpool fall short, nothing else. As Rafa Benítez himself once said, “you cannot win mind games if you have a bad team…it’s easy to talk about mind games when he has a good team and he has won, and that was the case”.

Granted, I obviously wasn’t in the Liverpool dressing-room in the days and weeks following the press-conference, but common sense nonetheless makes it difficult for me to believe that Champions League winners like Alonso, Gerrard, Hyypia and Carragher, Argentina captain and double Olympic champion Javier Mascherano, and European Champions Pepe Reina and Torres (and Alonso again) would have been adversely affected to any great degree by their manager’s comments, especially when the Manchester United players had been listening to worse from their own boss for years (I wonder how Steven Gerrard would have reacted, for example, had Rafa ever said that he’s “from Liverpool and everyone from that city has a chip on their shoulder”?) Furthermore, Stoke was a ground where they themselves had only narrowly escaped with a 1-0 win a couple of weeks earlier in a game which might have seen both Rooney and Ronaldo sent off for violent conduct (the former for throwing an elbow, the latter for kicking out at an opponent) long before they managed to fashion a winner. Even then, Liverpool (without Torres for much of the game, who was returning from yet another injury, and Alonso for all of it) hit the woodwork twice and might have won with a little luck.

Steven Gerrard would appear to disagree, and that’s fine. I don’t believe that he or his ghost writer are sensationalising anything to sell books, I think it’s clear from the bits and pieces I’ve read that this is how he really feels. The quotes I’ve seen also lead me to wonder whether there is a connection between “I can pick up the phone and speak to all of my previous Liverpool managers” and Gérard Houllier’s comment in 2010 that “after Rafa Benítez left this summer, one of the players sent me a message. He said, ‘Boss, he hasn’t beaten you.’” They also pretty much confirm my long-held suspicion that when Henry Winter (who co-wrote his first biography) welcomed the Liverpool manager’s exit in June 2010 with a relish that appeared thoroughly at odds with his position as a supposedly objective writer and journalist, he was simply channelling the Liverpool captain’s own feelings. In fact, I would suggest that the following paragraph wouldn’t look at all out of place in this latest biography: “Now that this cold political animal has gone, Anfield requires a manager who can empathise with players, who understands they are human beings as well as professional footballers. Sometimes players need a boss who asks after their family or tells them ‘well done’”. And who doesn’t say anything out of line in press-conferences, of course.

“One time he did suffer a meltdown involving Manchester United and Mr. Ferguson…I was grabbing the couch, digging my fingers into the arms, feeling embarrassed for him. When I met up with England all the Manchester United players told me Fergie was just laughing at Rafa, saying: ‘I’ve got him. I’ve got him.’”

So what if they did? So what if he was? Any objective, clear-eyed analysis with the benefit of even two months’ hindsight would have concluded exactly the opposite once Ferguson rose to his opposite number’s bait after Liverpool’s 4-1 victory at Old Trafford in March and admitted putting his club’s sports technology department to work to disprove the claim that “the difference between us is maybe £100m spent on players and a big stadium”. Even Patrick Barclay, not noted for his love of either Liverpool or Benítez, acknowledged that “you don’t need a sports technology department to know how wrong the United manager is, just the back of a cigarette pack.” And the conclusion as to who truly “got” who would have only been underlined a few weeks later when Ferguson and Sam Allardyce bizarrely joined forces to fabricate charges of disrespect against Benítez based on the most innocuous of (self-deprecating) hand gestures during a 4-0 win over Blackburn in what had all the hallmarks of a coordinated attack.

“It seemed so unlike Rafa to talk in such an emotional way. You could see the anger in him”.

Er, no, no you couldn’t. This is just demonstrably false. You could tell he was nervous and outside of his comfort zone, but emotional? Angry? “Meltdown”? Absolutely not. This wasn’t, contrary to popular belief, a Kevin Keegan-style rant. Keegan, already broken under the pressure as he would be again a few years later in the Wembley tunnel as outgoing England manager, reacted to prompting from Richard “Did you smash it?” Keyes after the penultimate game of a season which was already basically over and let rip with a wide-eyed tirade, voice cracking, finger jabbing towards the camera. Benítez was led by nobody, made no physical gestures and never once raised his voice. There was nothing spontaneous about it; it couldn’t have been more deliberate had he been reading from a typed, bullet-pointed list…oh right, he was. One man had meticulously sketched out a plan of attack, the other just snapped. That’s the difference between an emotional response and a calculated one.

“He then railed against the fixture list and the timing of matches being skewed in United’s favour. Rafa was sounding muddled and bitter and paranoid. He was humiliating himself. It was a disaster.”

Hang on now, who was it that “railed” against the fixture list again? As recently as a week before the contentious press-conference, Ferguson, an arch-purveyor of the “siege mentality” approach, had stated the following: “I’ve been saying this for a few months, but our programme didn’t do us any favours and I think we have been handicapped by the Premier League in the fixture list. They tell me it’s not planned. I’ve got my doubts. I’m not saying what they do down there, but next year we will be sending somebody to see how it happens, I can assure you. I just don’t understand how you can get the fixtures like that.” The part in bold would appear to carry an implicit accusation of corruption, one that the Liverpool manager was, in part, responding to, so I would love to ask Steven Gerrard to expand on who was truly sounding “muddled and bitter and paranoid” at that time, or why it’s not ok or even embarrassing or humiliating for one manager to speak about Ferguson’s behaviour towards referees but it’s fine for others to do so (afterwards, incidentally, Graham Poll, a retired referee himself, stated that “Rafa Benítez has articulated what referees have been thinking for years – that Mr. Ferguson can say what he wants about them and the FA will allow him to get away with it”).

Back in 2005, in comments that evoked what the Liverpool manager would say of Manchester United some four years later (“they are always going man-to-man with the referees, especially at half-time when they walk close to the referees and they are talking and talking”), José Mourinho stated after the first-leg of a League Cup semi-final that “I know the referee didn’t walk to the dressing rooms alone at half-time…maybe when I turn 60 and have been managing in the same league for 20 years and have the respect of everybody I will have the power to speak to people and make them tremble a little bit”. Which was perhaps fair enough, unlike his baseless accusations of corruption which resulted in death threats to Anders Frisk and his family in 2005, or making more veiled charges of corruption involving Barcelona and UNICEF and gouging Tito Vilanova’s eye in 2011, or spending much of his second spell in charge of Chelsea shouting about conspiracies against his team. Sounds pretty muddled, bitter and paranoid to me. Steven Gerrard’s view? “For me, the ideal situation would obviously have been for Mourinho to have managed Liverpool”. Good grief.

“I couldn’t understand Rafa’s thinking in wanting to take on Ferguson, a master of mind games, when we were sitting so calmly on top of the table early into a new year”.

Well then Benítez, whenever he comes to write a biography himself, will no doubt be forgiven for expressing a similar failure to understand why his captain and most important player was out drinking and becoming involved in needless physical confrontations and landing himself on affray charges “when we were sitting so calmly on top of the table” (after a 5-1 away win). As for the “master of mind games” bit, there is no greater evidence of how large a grain of salt with which any reader of this book should take many of the opinions contained therein. He’ll make a fantastic English football pundit someday, Steven Gerrard, no doubt about it (assuming that Brendan Rodgers or a future successor doesn’t assign him that coveted coaching role at the club). He’s already drank the Ferguson Kool-Aid, which seems to afford automatic entry to the pundit club in and of itself. Never has the process of acting like a dickhead, sounding like a dickhead and, generally, just being a dickhead been given such a lofty title as Alex Ferguson’s “mind games”, and these people just queue up to regurgitate it.

Of course, a cursory glance through Ferguson’s “greatest hits” would tell you that Liverpool won the title handily in 1988 following his statement about Anfield that he could understand why teams “have to leave here choking on their own vomit, biting their tongue, afraid to tell the truth” (and Kenny Dalglish’s withering “you’ll get more sense out of her” response); Blackburn won the title in 1995 after he stated that they would have to do a “Devon Loch” to lose it; and Arséne Wenger won the double a season after he called him “a novice” who “should keep his opinions to Japanese football”, following up by clinching another title at Old Trafford in 2002 and going undefeated in 2004 as Ferguson protested that “they are scrappers who rely on belligerence – we are the better team”. Even Keegan in 1996, reacting to comments that Leeds and Notts. Forest wouldn’t try a leg against Newcastle, wasn’t a proper victim since the title was already gone by the time he snapped, due to his team’s utter inability to defend. And as for Rafa, well, he wasn’t putting members of his own staff to work refuting anything his opponent was saying or getting some other manager to fight his corner.

It’s an odd one. Ultimately the lesson from what I’ve read would appear to be that it doesn’t matter what you say or do as long as you end up winning in the end. “Fighting with the board, other managers and the press wasn’t the Liverpool way” he says (did Rafa ever really fight with the press, incidentally?), and yet calling a respected manager like Wenger “a novice” (or, perhaps, a “specialist in failure”), not speaking to the national broadcaster for years or poking a finger into another coach’s eye (literally fighting) all appears to be acceptable behaviour because there were trophies to show for it and because, as he says of Mourinho, “he created a special bond with each squad he managed…you heard it in the way his players spoke about him…I understood how they felt because they had shared such a big moment in their careers together…I never had that with Rafa Benítez. I would have had it with José Mourinho”. I wonder if that, then, is Rafa’s defining failure in Steven Gerrard’s eyes: that he wasn’t Mourinho? If so, it’s no surprise that so many of us are at odds with him on this one.

In truth, we can sit here and wonder all day, wonder why some behaviours are ok and some aren’t, wonder what Steven Gerrard must think of Pep Guardiola, for example, and whether it would have been more acceptable for Rafa Benítez, instead of reading out a list of “facts” in January 2009, to say of Ferguson that “in this room, he's the fucking chief, the fucking man, the person who knows everything about the world and I don’t want to compete with him at all. It’s a type of game I'm not going to play because I don't know how. Off the pitch, he has already won, as he has done all year. On the pitch, we'll see what happens”. On such matters we have but two options: (a) buy his book and find out, or (b) read his view of Mourinho that “the Liverpool fans would have loved him” and save our twenty quid.

You're my hero!

[Anywhichwayicant]

Stunning, as always.

[HarryLabrador]

You're my hero!

Regarding 2008/09, since Steven Gerrard has brought it up: it’s disappointing

Excellent! Thank you, E2K. There's nothing more to say now; you've nailed it!

[Barneylfc∗]

Brilliant post E2K.

The Mourinho shit is grating me. Really pissing me off. 

[kcbworth]

As for the “master of mind games” bit, there is no greater evidence of how large a grain of salt with which any reader of this book should take many of the opinions contained therein. He’ll make a fantastic English football pundit someday, Steven Gerrard, no doubt about it (assuming that Brendan Rodgers or a future successor doesn’t assign him that coveted coaching role at the club). He’s already drank the Ferguson Kool-Aid, which seems to afford automatic entry to the pundit club in and of itself. Never has the process of acting like a dickhead, sounding like a dickhead and, generally, just being a dickhead been given such a lofty title as Alex Ferguson’s “mind games”, and these people just queue up to regurgitate it

 

[Redeo]

With all due respect, could we not keep this thread as a tribute of sorts to Stevie, and leave all the slagging off of true local hero in the various Rafa threads, cos lots of very upset people are just going to repeat their thoughts in here.

Without Gerrard this club would have probably won fuck all in recent history...'fact'

I'll be buying the book, be nice to read the thoughts of a man who thought better of joining Chelsea for a start

With all due respect, could we just have threads as they are. With people expressing their opinions, and others reading them.

[goalrushatgoodison]

E2K - the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.

That's the best article I've ever read. Where's it gone btw?

[Chakan]

E2K - the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be.

That's the best article I've ever read. Where's it gone btw?

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=322947.msg14123640#msg14123640

[goalrushatgoodison]

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=322947.msg14123640#msg14123640

Cheers mate.

[GreatEx]

I honestly think you need to email that to Steven himself, it may help him.

[bravoco]

Amazing work E2K. Nothing much else to say.

[El Lobo]

/thread

[vicgill]

I honestly think you need to email that to Steven himself, it may help him.

Please do I think he needs it