Steven Gerrard

[The Birdman]

I'd say there's a few reasons...limited playing time/game management among them.

Even Shearer, idiot that he is, made the point about him giving up the England game etc etc.........for what ? To extend his career in LA Galaxy ? I think not.

When Gerrard retired from England no-one could foresee his sharp decline physically.
Maybe if Sturridge had stayed fit and we'd have played the diamond more it would have hid it but he retired off the back of his best domestic season in years.

This season has been one of his worst, in terms of influence of games in open play and results for many factors.

[meffin]

Click Clunk

Di Viao is still playing?!

[G]

Even when his best mates are saying differently

I think Gerrard was being dignified personally but each to their own

His best mate was asked on Twitter and he said he hadn't spoken to Stevie about it. Are they both lying?

[red g]

How have we not been able to match at £76k a week salary? I can't believe it's simply because he wanted a change; I'm now believing there's much more deep-seated reasons.

i read a completely speculative report that Gerrard and his mrs could make 90m over the course of his time with Galaxy and endorsements

[baitman]

i read a completely speculative report that Gerrard and his mrs could make 90m over the course of his time with Galaxy and endorsements

posh and becks > scal and ged.

[Reece]

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steven-gerrard---ill-liverpool-8393442

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steven-gerrard-im-turning-down-8394178

[Darkon]

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/steven-gerrard---ill-liverpool-8393442

Steven Gerrard - 'I'll be a Liverpool FC fan til the day I die. I've lived my dreams'

Jan 06, 2015 19:00
By James Pearce

In a world exclusive, Steven Gerrard spoke to the ECHO’s Liverpool FC reporter James Pearce in his first newspaper interview since announcing the news that he will leave Anfield this summer....

Steven Gerrard says his dreams have been fulfilled at Liverpool FC including lifting the European Cup in Istanbul in 2005

Steven Gerrard insists his strong bond with Liverpool FC will never be broken as he insisted: “This club has helped me achieve my dreams.”

The Reds captain, who will bring the curtain down on 26 years of loyal service when his contract expires this summer, says he feels blessed to have enjoyed such a glittering career.

In an extensive interview with the ECHO, Gerrard dismissed suggestions that he felt let down over the Reds’ attempts to retain his services beyond the current campaign.

The 34-year-old midfielder, who has announced he will move to America to play Major League Soccer, says with his game-time at Anfield being reduced it was simply the right time to pursue a new challenge.

Gerrard revealed he snubbed approaches from a host of top European clubs, including Premier League sides, before opting for the States.

“It’s been an emotional few days for my family and myself since I made the announcement and I think it’s been the same for a lot of the supporters,” Gerrard told the ECHO.

“It’s been difficult but I needed to snap out of it quickly because there are important games to be played. There is still a lot to be achieved this season.”

The Decision

Gerrard went public with the news of his impending exit last Friday after making the toughest decision of his life.

“It was around a week before that I made my mind up,” he said.

“I’d done a lot of thinking and a lot of analysing. I wanted Brendan to be the first to know. I thought about the team and when would be the best time to announce it.

“After I told him we decided to sit tight until after the Leicester game on New Year’s Day. I didn’t want to wait too long.

“I knew that once January arrived and I was free to talk to foreign clubs the speculation would increase. The manager would have been facing questions about my future every few days and I didn’t think that was fair.”

Gerrard revealed it was a conversation with Rodgers a month earlier which ultimately proved crucial in his decision to depart.

It came around the same time in late November when the club offered him a 12-month contract extension.

Rodgers informed the talismanic midfielder that he would no longer be an automatic selection.

The prospect of becoming a bit-part player simply didn’t appeal to such a dominant figure who has been Liverpool’s driving force for the best part of two decades.

“I’ve got to be honest, that chat with Brendan came earlier than I was expecting,” he said.

“It was about a month before that he first mentioned to me about managing my game time. We had another chat on the subject recently – 10 days to two weeks ago.

“It was tough but I understood. It’s been very amicable. Everyone knows how much I rate Brendan. Our relationship is very good.

“There hasn’t been a cross word between us. Brendan has been fantastic for me. My only regret is that I didn’t get to work with him at a younger age.

“There is no finger pointing from me towards the manager or anyone else at the club."

I've never wanted to be a squad player

“From a professional point of view, everyone knows what I’m like and what I want.

“Since I was 16, 17 years of age, the moment I come into work on a Monday morning my preparations begin to play 90 minutes the following weekend.

“That’s the buzz. I’ve always worked hard all week to prepare and make sure my performance is right come the weekend.

“When it gets to the stage where you don’t know if you’re going to be starting or not it becomes different.

“I’ve never wanted to be a squad player. If I was missing games now, I’d be sitting out even more next season. I knew it would get worse and worse as time went on.”

Gerrard admits if Liverpool had offered him a new contract last summer he would have put pen to paper as at that stage he didn’t know his role would soon be reduced.

He had just ended his 114-cap England career to extend his club career. Instead it was November before there was an extension on the table.

“Yes, if a contract had been put in front of me in pre-season I would have signed it,” he said.

“I’d just retired from England to concentrate all my efforts on Liverpool. I didn’t want my club games to be tailored.

“My injury record had been fantastic for the past two and a half years and I had a great season from a personal point of view last season.

“It’s all ifs, buts and hindsight now. That period between the summer and the end of November gave me thinking time.

“There’s no blame and I’m not angry about it. There are other people in the squad and the club had other things to worry about.

“Liverpool Football Club have been unbelievable for me since I was eight years old. This club has helped me fulfil my dreams over and over again.

“The memories and experiences I’ve had over the past 26 years I wouldn’t swap for anything in the world.

“I’m a very lucky boy and I am also proud of what I’ve given back – the sacrifices, the dedication and the loyalty.

“I enjoy a very strong relationship with Liverpool Football Club and I don’t see that coming to an end. I hope to serve the club again one day.”

Gerrard, whose classy double in Monday’s FA Cup win over AFC Wimbledon took his tally for the campaign to nine goals, insists Liverpool’s struggles during the first half of this season played no part in his decision.

“It’s got nothing to do with how results have been,” he said.

“That’s not the type I am. If things aren’t going so well, I’d rather stay and help to put things right. I think I’ve shown that over the years.

“It simply came down to the fact that the idea of becoming a squad player didn’t excite me or motivate me.

“People can have their own opinion on that. But it would have been too difficult for me having been used to starting every game.

“I didn’t want to become a bit-part player. Coming off the bench here and there.

“The buzz for me is playing, contributing and helping the team. When you don’t know if you’re going to be sat in the stands or on the bench it becomes a bit different.”

It’s not easy being me at times

There were also off-field considerations. After spending his entire life in the goldfish bowl of his home city, Huyton-born Gerrard decided his whole family would benefit from some time away.

“It’s not just on the pitch in football but what you do off it as well,” he said.

“I think it will be good for me to come out of the city for a little while.

“Liverpool is my home and I love the city. But it’s not easy being me at times.

“Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t swap it for anything in the world because I’ve fulfilled my dreams. I’m not complaining about it but it’s one of the things I’ve gone over.

“Being a Liverpool player and living in the city, there are some cons that come with it.

“It can be difficult to come out of the house – to go to the coffee shop, go out for a meal, take the kids to the park or do the school run. The little things. That can be tough at times.

“Then there are the Steven Gerrard rumours – the bits and bobs you have to deal with.

“It will be nice to try something different - a new country, a new culture. To take the kids away so they can experience something new.

“It will be nice to be able to walk out the door without being recognised.”

Playing wise, there will be a weight lifted from his broad shoulders.

He has carried the hopes and dreams of Kopites for so long – Liverpool have always looked to Gerrard to provide the inspiration.

“I’ve never seen that as a burden,” he added.

“There’s been huge pressure and responsibility on me but I’ve always loved and embraced that.

“It’s been a massive honour to be captain of this club for so long and it will be right to the end.

“I’ll be a Liverpool fan to the day I die. I’ve lived my dreams."

[Roboklopp]

Good read. Guess a few of us are just realising how much we love him & how ingrained he is with all things lfc.

[ukfootballfan101]

I've read two good articles about Gerrard today. Thei first:-

Steven Gerrard's decision reveals game's tribalism and wishful thinking

Don't worry. This is not a column about Steven Gerrard. There have been enough of those over the past few days, ever since the Liverpool captain confirmed that he will no longer be the Liverpool captain after the end of the season. Instead, he will be the least comfortable man in Los Angeles, a deeply shy introvert shifting awkwardly at A-list parties, grinning with fear in his eyes.

No, this isn't one of those columns that asks whether the time really is right for the 34-year-old to leave, or assesses just how Liverpool will cope without him, or attempts to rank him and his achievements in the past decade and a half in some meaningless list without clear criteria or purpose.

It is not a column that seeks to expose the dim-witted absurdity of using the two goals he scored against a League Two side on Monday night to prove that Liverpool should have done more to keep him. And it's not a column that will mention that it's probably better, for all concerned, that the man who has been known for a decade by most at Anfield simply as "the captain" leaves while he can still win games on his own rather than when he can't.*

Instead, in a way, this is about the columns about Steven Gerrard. It is a meta-column. It is a meta-column because, a few days on, the reaction to Gerrard's decision to leave Liverpool is now far more interesting than the decision itself.

There is the reaction of the fans. Not the fans of Liverpool, who are probably more split on the issue than they are presented as being, but the fans of everyone else. The fans who sing the Demba Ba song -- the one about Gerrard slipping last season, the one that's gone viral -- despite the fact that they do not support Chelsea and are not playing Liverpool.

The weirdest moment of this season so far, on a personal level, came at the Emirates, during Arsenal's game against -- I think -- Southampton, when a chorus of that song broke out. Do Arsenal dislike Liverpool more than they dislike Chelsea now? Or do they just dislike Steven Gerrard?

Given how popular that song has become over the past nine months, it is no surprise that the reaction to Gerrard's announcement was, well, mixed.

Some seemed to be furious at the fawning and gushing over Gerrard. Some seemed to be even more upset at the thought of all the fawning and gushing that might happen, even before it did. Others insisted he was overrated anyway, or that he let his country down, or that Paul Scholes or Frank Lampard or Glenn Helder never got this treatment when they retired and it was all the usual pro-Liverpool bias from the media.

What very few (among those who would count themselves as loyal fans of another club) did, or seemed to do, was what would certainly have happened had Gerrard been born 30 years earlier. Whatever their view on just how good he was or whether all the fawning was necessary, they did not lay down their cudgels and applaud what has been a very fine career indeed.


Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers hailed the performance of captain Steven Gerrard who scored both of his side's goals in their third-round victory over AFC Wimbledon in the FA Cup.
That is how most former England captains were ushered into retirement, or the liminal state of it that Gerrard is about to enter. It was the same for most former England players, or for players who had served their clubs, and thus the game, with distinction.

It is here that we see why this has not been afforded to Gerrard. Liking football and supporting a team are not the same thing; the increased frenzy around the sport in recent years has led to a decrease of the former and an increase in the latter. Gerrard has been a player in an era when the sport itself is immaterial; tribal fractures mean only the team, your team, matters. Everything else is to be hated and booed.

And then, more interestingly still, there is the reaction of the former players.

There is not a single ex-pro left in Britain who has not had his view sought on Gerrard. Most insightful of all was Chris Waddle, the onetime Marseille winger and mullet-wearer, who started off with: "I don't care what anybody says, for me, he's been a top player." I am sure you agree it is crucial we have these sorts of controversialists prepared to come out with these outlandish theories.

What is intriguing about the reams of opinions proffered by Gerrard's erstwhile peers is that there is a single thread that runs through all of them. It is, broadly, this: that Liverpool should have done anything at all to keep him, and that he is still capable of performing at the very highest level. Many have said they believe he could play the same role as Andrea Pirlo; a few others, who are somewhat closer to the truth, have suggested he could do a passable impersonation of Frank Lampard. Regardless, they all feel he can keep on playing in the Premier League until he decides the time is right to hang up his boots.

This is abundantly untrue. Leaving aside the issue of whether that is precisely what Gerrard has done anyway, it is not for the player to decide whether he is good enough to play. That decision has to be made by the collective: the club, represented by the manager, his coaches and the owners. This is largely because players are the worst judges imaginable of the standard they are playing at.

A few weeks ago, John Barnes was discussing his own incremental decline. For those of a younger persuasion, Barnes was the finest English player of the second half of the 1980s. He was a brilliant winger, a sort of prototype of, say, Eden Hazard. Barnes also invented the modern trend of being outstanding for his club and terrible for his country. By the mid-1990s, his pace had gone, disappearing in inverse proportion to his waistline.

Barnes was an intelligent player, though, and he moved inside, playing in central midfield for Liverpool. By 1996, it was obvious he was done. He was too slow, too immobile, too lacking. Obvious, that is, to everyone except Barnes. "I still thought my performances were good enough," he said.

There are some who do not quite fit the pattern, but they are not far off. Manchester United's Gary Neville famously decided it was time to go after an arduous afternoon at West Brom -- his brother, Phil, had a similar experience for Everton -- which is more self-aware than most, but not exactly the height of modesty. Both had been fading for some time, long before they called it a day.

Players, in other words, often believe they are immortal. That is no great surprise. What is eye-opening, and has been amply demonstrated the past few days, is that they seem to apply this to all other players, too. They believe all of their peers can keep on playing as long as they want.

It is not immediately clear why that should be, even if football has long fought a battle against time, if clubs have invested hundreds of millions trying to prolong the careers of their stars, if fans have been unwilling to see their heroes fade.

And yet the exact same process applies to the players, too, that is what has been notable about the reaction to Gerrard's announcement that he would sail to the west. They, too, do not want to acknowledge the beat of the clock, not just in themselves but in others. Perhaps it is two sides of the same affliction: to acknowledge that others get old and their flame is extinguished is to remind ourselves that we all eventually outlive our usefulness.

* It is not even a column that argues Gerrard is the embodiment of English football, in his Roy of the Rovers heroism, his unshakeable conviction that the most important players on the pitch play in the middle of it, and his complete lack of tactical nous, all of which have combined to make him a very good central midfielder but at the same time would have made him an infinitely better right-winger or No. 10. That column can wait until he actually leaves Liverpool.

RORY SMITH
@RORYSMITHTIMES

http://www.espnfc.com/club/liverpool/364/blog/post/2230441/steven-gerrards-decision-to-leave-liverpool-reveals-footballs-tribalism-and-wishful-thinking-premier-league

[ukfootballfan101]

the second:-

STEVEN GERRARD: THE PRICE OF LOVE
by Rob Gutmann // 6 January 2015 //

STEVE Gerrard Gerrard. So good we named him twice. Like all good things him and us is coming to an end but does it really have to be so soon? On the surface, at face value, perhaps, yes, the time is right. He is nearly 35 and his star is clearly no longer in the ascendency. We — LFC — are a young team that need to move on and evolve away from a reliance on a talisman who is finding being talismanic harder with each passing month. The proud man himself doesn’t want the twilight of one of Liverpool Football Club’s greatest careers to be characterised by secondary billing.

‘The club has done all it can to keep Steven,’ assures manager Brendan Rodgers. Stevie’s best mate, Jamie Carragher, isn’t so sure. He keeps hinting, posing the question: Did the club do it all it could to keep Gerrard? Jamie must have a point. There’s always more that can be done to persuade an employee to stay with an employer. In football, the conversation’s limits can be measured in zeros on remuneration packages.

Of course, Stevie G is above it all being a question of money. He’s a rich man anyway, but more importantly he’s a noble man. “It will never be about money with Stevie,” assured Brendan just a month ago. We know what Brendan means and we also trust Gerrard. But, it’s never ‘never about money’, especially for footballers primed to be signing the last big payday of their careers, and most likely, their entire working lives.

Also, it being about money isn’t about it being about money. Despite what Disney taught us about rich people like Donald Duck’s millionaire uncle Scrooge McDuck, they don’t tend to see the acquisition of wealth as an opportunity to bathe and frolic in mountains of gold coins, or wear unnecessary furs and carry a cane. Rich people, like poor people, make plans with money. To imagine that people see themselves as being satisfied with finite sums of money is a failure of imagination.

It doesn’t all have to equate to wanting to own yachts, mansions in the tropics, or having influence at court, either. It can be about making wider family and friends comfortable. Why the concept of family wealth sharing is only readily applied to lottery winners is a bit bizarre. Gerrard wasn’t born to wealth, and certainly comes across as a man who would take his family responsibilities extremely seriously. What’s an extra couple of million quid to Stevie G? It’s a chance to set a struggling family member up in business. It’s a chance to fund parents retiring to a dream home in Spain.

Amidst the motive spectrum that ranges from pure greed to pure philanthropy, is perhaps a simple requirement — he’d quite like to maintain a lifestyle he and his family have gotten very used to. Not just maintain it in the immediate future but for the further 50 years he may be planning on staying alive for. That’s 50 years during which he has to contemplate that his earning powers will be a mere fraction of what they once were.

It was never all about money for Steven Gerrard but it was never not all about it either. Proclamations about restricted playing time don’t really add up as a genuine reason to call time on a career that still clearly has mileage in it. Gerrard is proud, but he’s not a vain idiot. Far from it. He can look down the road at Ryan Giggs’s example, and Paul Scholes’s to an extent, and see that legends are not inherently diminished by reduced playing minutes.

As with Kenny Dalglish’s latter playing years, there is enough precedent to show that a great who takes steps back, is exalted again and again as he returns periodically to the fray to save the proverbial day.

Gerrard cited the lure of a new country and a new lifestyle for his family as a major factor in his decision to call time on LFC. Like all the other reasons it will be the truth. A truth though within a context. Does Steven want to play less for Liverpool, get increasingly criticised by fickle fans, and all for the modest price of a two-year contract with no promises as to the thereafter for a package fee of about £5-6million or does he want to experience an exciting new lifestyle, in an unpressurised work environment, for say £12m?

Or, would a contract worth about £10m over four years from his beloved LFC, that allowed him to smoothly segue from player to coach, be more attractive than effectively retiring a glittering career prematurely to play mainly with League One standard players in a country that lacked any real passion for his sport?

Let us be under no illusions. LFC could have persuaded Steven Gerrard to stay. They (the manager? the owners?) decided that the price on the ticket simply wasn’t worth paying. Gerrard isn’t leaving Liverpool, Liverpool is retiring Steven Gerrard. Behind the doublespeak of statements that ‘the club has done everything to keep the player’ are, again, contextual realities.

The statement should have read: “Bearing in mind that Steven Gerrard is nearly 35, and he’s had quite a few dodgy games this season, and you know he puts a bit of pressure on us to play more, and he’s deluding himself a bit, and maybe too influential in the dressing room, and let’s face it he’s hardly going to get better next season, we did our sums and thought that he would only be worth keeping if he was prepared to accept the minor humiliation of being reduced to the sort of wage we’d pay a squad player like Joe Allen, so by offering him about that we think we were being generous, and that you could say that equated to doing ‘everything possible to keep the player’.”

That’s the rub. It wasn’t presented to Stevie G like that, but he and his advisers knew what the Joe Allen-shaped package represented. It meant ‘we want you Stevie, but not that much’. People in the key positions know what they are doing on this one. They are making a bold decision. They may be making the right decision. Funny though, with each passing Steven Gerrard goal it just feels less and less like it.

Let’s hope, if little else, the great man himself is angered to new heights and one last mighty hurrah. Let’s hope too that positions can be shifted, minds changed, and the greatest of careers extended beyond the wastelands of a minor football jurisdiction, an ocean away.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2015/01/steven-gerrard-the-price-of-love/?wt=3

[wongers]

Seriously? Be realistic, there are two factors, firstly we were playing League Two opposition, and secondly he bust a gut to get to the header because he's interested in playing again now that he's decided he's leaving, whereas he's looked distinctively not arsed for the majority of the season to date.

jesus you should be ashamed to call yourself a liverpool supporter in fact i'm ashamed to think we have so called supporters like you

[fidget]

I've heard it said that Gerrard spent the first half of last season conserving his legs for his last world cup and only started putting the effort in when he saw we were in with a sniff of the title.

[Tee]

As usual, dithering cunts left it late to even offer him a deal to stay on. Says he would have signed on if asked in the summer. ****ing shambles of a club.

[G]

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport...erpool-8393442

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport...g-down-8394178

So can we put it to bed now? He didn't fancy being a squad player and we didn't offer him a contract in the summer which he would have signed but would have ended up unhappy anyway because he'd still end up having his games curtailed.

[DeanoUK]

Not really G, I concur with Tee.