da bwin： Steven Gerrard is commonly recognised as the best player not to win the Premier League, and that’s hard to argue against when he has been consistently at the top of his game for over a decade. Gerrard’s most successful moments for Liverpool have come in the Champions League and, after a brief absence from the competition, the Reds have returned, only to be drawn against Real Madrid and the dreaded PFC Ludogorets Razgrad. As per usual, a side who has been withdrawn from European competitions are struggling to balance domestic football alongside travelling around the continent.
da jogodeouro： Liverpool FC in general are not having a very good time of it. Their strikers can’t score, their midfielders can’t create, and their defenders still can’t defend. Even their ever-present Captain Gerrard is struggling to find any form, but with his contract into it’s final months it would be wrong not to renew soon.
Steven Gerrard must still be considered a key player at Anfield. There is no doubting his ability, and although he’s yet to take to his deeper role, the familiar cliché of ‘form is temporary, class is permanent’ springs to mind. He may well be 34 years old and in some players (usually the ones who rely on pace) the end is nigh, others who learn and adapt to dictate play from deep using their vast experience can still be an effective asset at 35-40 (e.g. Pirlo & Giggs).
You’d expect that a player as loyal to one club such as Gerrard would be offered a contract at first opportunity, but Steven was forced to come out and explain that he isn’t going to just retire if Liverpool don’t put a new contract offer to him – a messy situation for one of the club’s most dedicated players.
Brendan Rodgers was quick to react to Stevie G’s comments as he expressed how brilliant he has been for the Northern Irish manager during his time with the club. Rodgers also told how contract negotiations are in fact underway and that he certainly sees Steven as a part of his plans for the coming seasons. However, it’s still bizarre that he’s been allowed to drift well into the final year of his contract with no real rush to secure the player who was once the player who the rest of the squad was built around.
Of course there’s a possibility that Gerrard may well be demanding more money than the club are willing to offer, especially for a 34-year-old during what Rodgers has described as a ‘transitional season’. Yet no manager before him would have dreamt of putting a price cap on the ex-England captain’s wages but is that ideology simply deemed as living in the past?
OK, Gerrard isn’t the player he once was, but his presence both on and off the pitch – as captain – has been integral to any success that Liverpool have had during his time at the club. To let somebody as loyal and effective to just walk out of the door and find another club would be distasteful of Rodgers, and something which would devastate all Liverpool fans.
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