I don't particularly like Gerrard or Rooney, but I don't get why so many people, particularly English ones, make such an effort to devalue their careers/quality.
Agree. I don't even particularly like players like Rio, Lampard, Terry, Rooney, etc, but for me they were undoubtedly legends. I guess the tribalism comes into it as well as the lack of national team success. I think England's biggest problem has always been a management issue; where they basically picked the worst managers for them the past 1-2 decades. People take the piss out of the 'Golden' generation but all those players were brilliant. Sometimes they were unlucky as well, as a few of their exits were penalties and I also think a lack of decisions (the Lampard goal) ****ed them.
Truth is, I'd have taken him at OT, but not at the replacement of Scholes, because that wouldn't have worked with how we played back then.
I reckon if Gerrard had gone to United...they'd have won much more in Europe and would be regarded as one of the best sides of all time - the same way Barca are talked about - simply because he would have been the perfect player for that team and leader for Ferguson.
See this is it. The slip isn't even something I'd attack him for seeing as it's just bad luck (although tbf the poor control leading to it wasn't). The thing that Gerrard absolutely does deserve criticism for in that game though was an atrocious and selfish second half performance mainly involving wasting more good positions than I cared to count by shooting from 30 yards whenever he had the chance. One of those goes in and he's heroically atoned for the slip, none of them go in and no-one a few weeks later remembers the good positions he wasted. If I had to point to a single game to sum up why I think he is overrated it would be that one, ignoring the slip. The slip was just quite (no actually, hilariously) funny.
With that being said Gerrard off the top of my head has also made more high profile errors than most other names in this discussion. Own goal vs Chelsea in 2005 League Cup final to take it to extra time, backpass vs France 2004, header to Suarez last year, backpass to Henry in some year or other, penalty shootout miss 2006, red card vs us this year and backpass to Drogba 2010. Not a point I'd defend particularly vehemently as I haven't given any of the other names in this discussion much thought, but off the top of my head the list of the others' high profile errors doesn't seem so exhaustive.
Chelsea were wasting time from minute 1...I'm not even joking. They had most their team in the box. A standard play is to shoot from distance to draw them out.
We lost the league because of stupid defenders like Kolo Toure giving up goal after goal in almost every game. But people talk about that season in a way to criticise Gerrard, and often Rodgers. The truth is...we should have never been in that position in the first place. It was a quantum leap of an improvement. The odds were heavily stacked against us in terms of keeping that run going - we had already won 11 in a row at that stage. Something was going to give.
Other than Chelsea in 2005, how many serious attempts were there by other clubs to sign Gerrard?
Granted, most players at top English clubs tend not to leave for other top English clubs so that in itself isn't unusual, but it's telling IMO that while his midfield chums were signed by Barcelona and Real Madrid he was left in Liverpool. And it's because, as good as Gerrard was (and I'm not trying to argue that he wasn't a very good player, just that he's over-rated), he wasn't good enough to play central midfield for a truly elite team. He is too much if a jack of all trades midfielder and to play at the very elite you need to be more specialised than Gerrard was. He didn't have the positional discipline or tackling ability to play DM and IMO lacked the technical ability to be a really elite playmaker.
United wanted him 3 times. Chelsea wanted him twice. Real Madrid wanted him twice. Right before last season Bayern wanted him. Everybody wanted the guy. He was an amazing CM, UEFA club midfielder of the year for what he did in that CL. People talk just about Istanbul...but it was a miracle to even get there in the first place. It was basically Gerrard and a well-drilled defence by Benitez, with a few key goals from Luis Garcia.
Find the Gerrard debate pretty weird. The critics saying he wasn't great because he didn't win the league are silly, but so are the tons of supporters who paint every great performance of his as "single-handed". And with regards to the 2005 final, everyone knows that game was the Dietmar Hamann show... Gerrard can suck a fat one.
I think saying that kind of comment for any player is kind of weird - no one wins single-handedly; but the closest definition to it is Gerrard. You can only appreciate it if you've watched him as much as most Liverpool fans have, to honestly gauge how bad most of his teammates were. I'm sure it got to the point where it got cliche talking about it, but there is a **** tonne of examples. I'm not sure I've ever seen a forward, let alone midfielder score as many important goals - Henry himself said this. I also remember Southgate saying players used to joke about Gerrard crossing the ball in and heading it in himself. It became cartoonish. If there is a video to encapsulate this point; it's this, Gerrard's career in a nutshell:
