A list of Steven Gerrard’s red cards reveals a player whose rare flashes of indiscipline almost always come in the most heated circumstances.
Seven times he has been sent off while representing Liverpool: twice in the Merseyside derby, twice against Manchester United, and once in the final minute of a crucial season-ending match against Chelsea in 2003 with Champions League qualification slipping from his side's grasp.
On all but one of those seven occasions, his side was already losing when he departed. It is difficult to argue that a player whose career highlights include a stunning, stoppage-time FA Cup final equaliser in 2006 and a man-of-the-match performance as Liverpool came from 3-0 down to win the 2005 Champions League reacts badly to adversity.
Occasionally, however, we witness the villainous yin to the heroic yang. But when in January Gerrard announced his decision to join LA Galaxy once the season ends, sparking a long and public countdown to his departure, he placed himself under an additional burden.
A man who has made 704 appearances for Liverpool had, before the game against United, at most 11 to come. Now, with suspension, there can be no more than seven.
Players leave clubs all the time, of course, but few tell their fans about it several months in advance – and when they do, it doesn’t always help.
Liverpool have experienced both sweet and sour farewells. Kevin Keegan had won three league titles, two Uefa Cups, an FA Cup and a European Cup during six stellar years at Anfield before moving to Hamburg in 1977.
Like Gerrard his decision had become public with much of his final season still to play and it provoked resentment among many fans — even though Liverpool came a defeat in the FA Cup final away from a then-unprecedented treble that year. “There were mixed feelings about Kevin not putting the club first — the fans didn’t like that,” wrote the former Liverpool midfielder Jimmy Case in his recent autobiography, Hard Case. “You can never argue with a player wanting to move on and better himself but the fans don’t always see it that way, and they weren’t too happy.”
The bitterness surrounding his departure still affects Keegan’s reputation at Anfield: in 2013 fans were surveyed to rank the greatest players in the club’s history and, despite his achievements, Keegan found himself down at No19, just behind Dirk Kuyt. Supporters were considerably more forgiving when, in 1986, Ian Rush agreed a move to Juventus that would not be completed until the following summer. On that occasion supporters volunteered to pay a 25p-a-head levy on ticket prices — raising around £200,000 a season — in an unsuccessful bid to convince their prolific striker that he did not need the higher salary on offer in Serie A.
It probably helped that Rush’s performances continued to live up to his astonishingly prolific standards. After Rush’s final home game, a 1-0 victory over Watford in which the winner was his 40th and final goal of the season, fans in the Kop raised a giant rubber hand to help them wave goodbye more efficiently. “Farewell and good luck,” read one banner. “After the Italian job come back here,” sniffed another. He returned after one season.
On both occasions the player’s declaration of his intentions gave the club ample time to recruit a successor. Kenny Dalglish replaced Keegan in the side in 1977 and the Scot, by then the player-manager, signed John Aldridge halfway through Rush’s final campaign. Though he did not immediately impress and Dalglish was still promising to “do our very best to find someone or something to replace Ian Rush” as the striker packed his bags, Aldridge was the country’s leading marksman the following season.
Similarly, Gerrard’s early announcement has allowed Jordan Henderson to give a passable audition for the role of Liverpool’s captain and midfield heartbeat.
“I think it’s right to announce it well in advance,” says Liam Brady, who made public his decision to leave Arsenal nine months before completing his move to Juventus in the summer of 1980.
“Some players hang on to try to kid everybody, kid the press and kid the fans. I wanted to be fair to the Arsenal supporters and the directors by saying, ‘I won’t be here after this season’.” Kevin Keegan had gone abroad a couple of years earlier and he’d opened the doors.
“But with Steven it’s a bit different. I was leaving when I was 24 because Italy was the up-and-coming league and there was an opportunity there for me to play for one of the big clubs. Steven’s coming to the end of his career and it’s a chance for him to play in a different place, a pretty easy league from what I can see. But like him I’d grown up at the club. I was there from when I was 13. I was very sad to be leaving but, you know, you just have to back your own judgment.”
Brady’s final season in London ended, as Gerrard’s still might, with his club narrowly failing to qualify for Europe through the league and losing the FA Cup final.
“I think knowing you’re going to leave does change the way you play,” he says. “You’re desperate to leave in the best way possible. Unfortunately for me it didn’t happen like that; but there’s every chance that Steven’s final game will be the FA Cup final and if he wins that it would be a very nice way to go out. But having said that, if Arsenal are playing against him I hope he loses.” Guardian service
