Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story (11 page)

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

You train all week, rest well, eat well, prepare well
, and you know exactly what you want to do. But there remain some things which, as a footballer, are still out of your control.

Liverpool had really good players, and some great ones, at the time we were winning the Treble and making progress in the league. We had grown together over a period of three or four years and I think that if the club had added to that with a couple of key signings we could have won the title.

It is a regret that this wasn’t the case, but, as I say, sometimes as players you can only do so much. Of all the seasons back when Michael was terrorising defences, I think 2002–03 was the one where we missed out. We had finished second to Arsenal and were ready to push on. Unfortunately, the signings we made that summer did not come off.

You work out pretty quickly whether a new team-mate is going to cut it or not simply by training alongside them. My first impressions of El-Hadji Diouf, Salif Diao and Bruno Cheyrou, signed for combined fees of £18m, were not good. I only wish I had been wrong and it had turned out that I judged them too soon.

I knew Diao was tough. I knew he would do a job in certain games and be a decent squad player, but I thought he wasn’t good enough to play every week. You could trust him and you knew what you were going to get from him. He put in a few good performances for Liverpool, but the way I look at it, to play for Liverpool in the centre of midfield you have to be very good and perform consistently. That’s my opinion. He had caught the eye with Senegal in the World Cup in Japan that summer, but he wasn’t world class.

I felt sorry in some respects for Cheyrou. The moment Gerard claimed he was the next Zinedine Zidane, he was on a hiding to nothing. Yes he was French – we’d signed him from Lille – but the comparison with one of the best players ever to have played killed him from the start. How could it not? Cheyrou is a nice guy and he had talent, but he wasn’t suited to the Premier League in the same way that Alberto Aquilani later found it tough.

Diouf was the biggest surprise for me because I remember we had the chance to sign Nicolas Anelka permanently. He had joined on loan in the second half of the previous season and made an impact, quickly becoming a favourite with the players and the fans. Gerard called a group of us into a room one day and said he had the chance to sign Anelka before adding that he was getting Diouf instead, that we’d all love him and that he’d turn out to be a class addition for us. That is one of the few things I can ever criticise Gerard for. He got that decision wrong.

As for ‘loving’ Diouf? I found him a constant liability to me and the rest of my team-mates. He wasn’t the type of person, or player, I wanted in the dressing room with us and the way his career has since gone isn’t a surprise to me. I thought he was arrogant and massively over-rated. I desperately wanted to win the Premier League, we all wanted to win the Premier League, and basically he was compromising that ambition. There were rare occasions when he played well, more often than not when he was moved on to the right of midfield. Yet he had been bought from Lens to score the goals that would take us from second place to the summit. He had been recruited to make the difference. That didn’t happen.

Selfishly, you do feel let down by the club. Just as the supporters do. We were close to taking a step forward and ended up taking two or three backwards.

I had started the season with such high hopes, but the whole campaign turned into a rollercoaster with more lows than highs.

Even though Liverpool did not lose a Premier League game until the start of November, I knew things weren’t right. We weren’t going to move on to the next level after all.

There were some silver linings. We won the League Cup, beating Manchester United 2–0 at Cardiff, after I had given us the lead with a deflected shot from distance that flew past Fabian Barthez. Michael sealed victory with time running out. Any time you beat United is great and that it came in a final meant it was even better. I had another winners’ medal. But, in the context of our season, winning the League Cup was the bare minimum we had set our sights on.

Personally, I found that season tough. I suffered a dip in form that resulted in me being hauled off in a Champions League match against FC Basle which Liverpool had to win to stay in the competition. At half-time we were 3–0 down. I’d stunk in the first half and Gerard told me to get showered at the break. It was an embarrassing performance from me. Liverpool needed to drag themselves off the canvas and I wasn’t deemed worthy of helping my team-mates out. That was a big blow. A slap in the face. Instinctively, you go on the defensive when that happens. I blamed the manager. I wanted to take on Gerard and Phil Thompson as I sat sulking in the dressing room, believing the whole world was against me.

It was a big deal at the time, a story that gripped the media because afterwards Gerard publicly questioned whether I had got too big for my boots. That hurt.

It was days, maybe weeks, later that I realised I was taken off for the right reasons and the Liverpool staff were trying to help me.

I realised that I wasn’t playing well and it wasn’t anyone else’s fault but my own. It was a problem I had to rectify myself and stop searching for excuses. Liverpool came back to draw 3–3 in Basle, although it wasn’t enough for us to remain in the Champions League. Some 10 years on and I still think about that night from time to time. It is moments like those that spur me and drive me on so that it doesn’t happen again. You go back to the drawing board.

Sometimes you think you have learnt all you can learn and then: smack. Something happens and you realise, ‘Hang on, I’m still wet behind the ears.’

It wasn’t just the Basle game that did that to me. That season was the first time I came across Rafa Benitez. He was the coach of Valencia, who had just won La Liga in Spain, breaking up the heavyweight dominance of Real Madrid and Barcelona.

We were drawn in the same Champions League group as them and lost home and away, barely getting a kick. They dominated from start to finish, pressed the ball and basically suffocated us. They were the methods I would experience at first hand later on, but for the time being Rafa had left me worried. Seeing the standard they set made me realise Liverpool needed to be better. An awful lot better. We were falling short against the best. That meant we had to improve.

“Any time you beat United is great and that it came in a final meant it was even better. I had another winners’ medal.”

Taking on a Daunting Adversary

Arsene Wenger complained about this tackle on Patrick Vieira in a Charity Shield match in the curtain raiser to the 2002–03 season. He has his opinion, but I never hear him saying much when one of his own players has made a hard tackle. This game was one of the first times the two teams had met since the FA Cup Final when we were played off the park but still nicked the trophy. It was clear I had two options. Either you stand off them again and we don’t get lucky this time, or you get in their faces and make it hard for them. I chose the latter.

Rough and Tumble

Hitching a lift on Charlton’s Scott Parker, who later became my team-mate with England at Euro 2012. We had a decent partnership in the tournament. Scenes like this are part and parcel of the cut and thrust of the Premier League. I don’t know how I got on top of him, presumably I was going for a header at some point, and I’m on the way down.

Overstepping the Mark

Squaring up to Kevin Campbell in a Merseyside derby – again – after a poor tackle on Gary Naysmith, who is lying on the turf out of shot. You’ll notice a certain Wayne Rooney trying to get involved. It was Wayne’s first Merseyside derby and the Everton fans had been singing all through the game, ‘Rooney’s gonna get you.’ He bounced our goalkeeper, Chris Kirkland, in one full-blooded challenge and also hit the bar. He was desperate to make his mark. I had seen Wayne in junior games, and word was spreading fast that he was a special player. It’s amazing to think that not long after this I was playing with him for England.

With a Little Help From My Freund

I am either trying to win a free-kick against Steffen Freund here or looking to run the ball out of play and give my team-mates a breather. To me this is a classic Premier League photograph. Rough and tumble, no one giving an inch. There are a lot of strong players in the top flight and you have to try to hold your own. If you don’t, it’s simple: you get bullied and then disappear.

Always There With a Helpful Word

Gerard was the manager and I was just a player, but at times our relationship felt as though it was father and son. I like this picture because I think the warmth between us and respect we had for each other comes shining through. Nothing was ever too much trouble for Gerard Houllier where I was concerned and that is still the case today. When England played France at Euro 2012, he was in touch in the build-up, looking to help me because he knew how important that tournament was for me. Yes he’s French, but he wasn’t being unpatriotic. I think 1–1 was the perfect result for him.