Friday 2 January 2015 10:17, UK
The awkward transition to the role of bit-part player never felt quite right for Liverpool’s hero, writes Adam Bate.
“I think it’s the right decision all things considered.” That was the initial response from Sky Sports pundit and Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher via Twitter.
Just six months ago it would have been unthinkable that reports of Steven Gerrard’s decision to leave the club when his contract expires at the end of the season would be seen in such terms by one of his closest allies. But that feels a long time ago now.
International retirement was supposed to help prolong the Liverpool captain’s career at Anfield and with the club believed to have offered Gerrard a two-year extension to his deal there was clearly some willingness to do just that.
However, Gerrard will have his own sense of what he’s now capable of contributing and whether his decision has been driven by the terms of the contract offered, what manager Brendan Rodgers referred to as “a life decision” or his own form and fitness, it seems a conclusion has been reached.
Gerrard has not been sold on a diminished role at the club he loves. Not for him the slow decline. Rodgers has spoken of the challenge he is facing to “manage his games” but that in itself is a change in position from last season when the skipper was at the heart of everything Liverpool did.
Gerrard started Liverpool’s first 17 games of the 2013/14 campaign and was in the line-up for the last 21 as well. Invigorated by the enthusiasm and vigour of those around him and with a title to pursue for the first time in years, he was even responsible for more Premier League assists than any other player last season.
The Premier League tracking data indicated that this was a man still capable of doing a passable impression of Gerrard at his peak, running more than 11 kilometres in half a dozen 2014 games by the first day of March - with Liverpool winning five of them and drawing the other.
But it’s been a different story since the summer in terms of results and Gerrard’s own physical prowess. So far this season he’s yet to pass that 11 kilometre mark in any Premier League appearance with his lack of dynamism being mirrored in the fortunes of the team as a whole.
Gerrard has been surrounded by mediocrity before and raged against it, often seemingly on a one-man mission to carry Liverpool through and there have been times this season when the 34-year-old’s flame has flickered.
It was Gerrard who provided the stunning moment of quality to briefly keep Liverpool’s Champions League hopes alive against Basel, the opening goal in the derby against Everton, and he was also the driving force from the bench that inspired the team to victory in his brief cameo appearance against Stoke.
Indeed, that latter example might have provided the template for a longer-term role for Gerrard at Liverpool, a vision Carragher had outlined in November. “Over the next 18 months, Brendan will have to start to take him off and leave him out for his own good,” he argued in his Mail column.
“But that isn't a bad thing for Steven. Can you imagine the reaction inside Anfield with 30 minutes of a tight game remaining and seeing No.8 getting stripped for action? With space to exploit and energy to change the game, he could be a lethal weapon.”
The problem has been that unlike Ryan Giggs for much of his later years at Manchester United or Frank Lampard this season at Manchester City, the Liverpool squad is neither strong nor successful enough to allow Gerrard to easily fade into the background.
Picking up trophies and playing in the biggest games as part of a squad competing on multiple fronts might have appealed, but with Liverpool lying in eighth place in the Premier League the next piece of silverware does not appear imminent.
And so he’ll move on while still the player more likely than most to make things happen for his side. He’s even Liverpool’s top goalscorer this season having completed more passes than anyone, being among the top three tacklers and with only Raheem Sterling having created more chances.
It’s a testament to his enduring significance but also a lamentable statistic for this Liverpool team and explains why becoming just another player at Anfield was never going to straightforward for such a talisman. After all, even Lampard had to leave Chelsea to truly embrace the bit-part role.
So Gerrard will walk away having made more memories than a boy from Whiston could dream of and gets to do so on his own terms too - still wanted at the club he served with such distinction as a first-team player for 16 years and their star man for more than a decade.
What will follow is likely to be five months that will provide him with ample time in which to drink in the much-deserved adulation that will come his way.
It will be emotional, it will be heartfelt and there will surely be times when it feels too much to give up without being dragged kicking and screaming from Melwood. But like his old team-mate says, in the cold light of New Year’s Day, the right decision has been made.
