Of the 14 questions put to Brendan Rodgers yesterday about Steven Gerrard's leaving of Liverpool, six related to his mooted return. A pensioner, lucky enough to have witnessed far better Liverpool teams than the current captain has ever played in, choked up when asked for a tribute by a television reporter outside Anfield.
Hundreds have scrawled good luck messages on a giant board in the Liverpool One shopping centre, many urging him to stay. The club’s figurehead for a generation is not out the door but it seems few are ready to relinquish the hope that Gerrard has given Liverpool these past 17 years.
Gerard Houllier will be among the crowd for Gerrard's 354th and final Anfield appearance against Crystal Palace today and it is worth rewinding to November 2002 for a piece of advice the former Liverpool manager dispensed at a delicate stage in the midfielder's career.
Worldwide respect
“Stay out of nightclubs now and you can buy one when you finish playing,” said Houllier, unaware at the time that Gerrard’s loss of focus stemmed from his parents’ divorce. He may not own the nightclub, and certainly wishes he had avoided a few more in the intervening years, but as he prepares to head off to
California
coast with worldwide respect, 10 trophies and more than 700 appearances for his boyhood club for baggage, he can have few regrets.
The absence of a Premier League winner’s medal is his biggest lament, of course. It is the only silverware available at club level that Gerrard never got his hands on, a fact he will never be allowed to forget. But that space in the trophy room, that slip, lends a fitting poignancy to the Liverpool captain’s career. Everyone who has covered Gerrard and his repeated acts of escapology will have resorted at some point to a superhero analogy, and a superhero is never without flaws.
The greatest void, however, awaits Liverpool. “I asked my staff to describe Steven in one word and they said things like ‘genuine’ and ‘quality,’” said Rodgers. “The word I would use is ‘Liverpool’. Not just Liverpool as a football club but Liverpool as a city.
“This is a guy who is very much about looking after his people. He loves his city. He’s had a number of opportunities to move to prestigious clubs but Liverpool is his home, he grew up around the corner, this is his place and these are the people he loves. What he’s given to this city, politicians haven’t given to this city.
"All the work he does for local hospitals and charities goes unheralded. He is a wonderful symbol for the people here and an incredible icon of the club. You see in Barcelona they have the quote 'more than a club'. You look at Steven Gerrard and he is more than football."
Indefatigable Liverpool and Rodgers have had time
to prepare for Gerrard's exit as age catches up with the once-dynamic midfielder and the manager's system sometimes strains to accommodate his captain. Yet this season has still delivered examples of the indefatigable spirit that will always be associated with the club's fifth European Cup triumph in Istanbul in 2005.
Against Basel in December, with Liverpool needing a win to reach the knockout phase of the Champions League, only the 34-year-old Gerrard reached the standard required, his late goal earning a draw but not a reprieve on a par with Olympiakos a decade earlier.
Then Liverpool ended a banana skin of a third-round FA Cup tie at AFC Wimbledon in January indebted to two goals from Gerrard, on his first appearance since announcing his decision to leave the club for LA Galaxy.
Who shoulders that responsibility now? The reluctance to accept that Gerrard’s time is over and the fixation on when he is coming back arguably stems from the fact there is no obvious answer. Guardian Service
