They say the darkest hour comes before the dawn, although
whether or not that includes false dawns – of which there have been a few at
Anfield in recent times – isn’t entirely clear. It has been confusing not only for
Liverpool’s battered and bruised supporters to
ascertain whether the pale sun above them was rising or setting, but also for their
talisman, Steven Gerrard.
He has seen the promise of Benítez’s side allowed to wilt on
the vine and the early Dalglish bump run aground on a catastrophic shopping
spree. Now, Liverpool’s failure to secure
another striker in the summer transfer window leaves him further away than ever
before from capturing another Premier League title.
Brendan Rodgers had arrived on Merseyside with the promise
of tiki-taka (not easy to say in a Scouse accent), something that even the most
wildly optimistic of supporters realized would take time to deliver. Yet the almost
face-spiting parsimony and inactivity of the transfer window saw the skies
darken again on Merseyside, and moved John W. Henry to send the supporters a ‘Letter from America’: “We should have held you / We should have
told you / But you know our sense of timing / We always wait too long.”
This new upswell of doom and gloom crested the Sunday before
last at home to Arsenal, when Luis Suárez – attempting a too-cute finish to a
chance that he needed to put his foot through – spooned a shot over the bar and
into the groans of the Kop. Sky Sports’ summariser Alan Smith – no stranger to spoiling
the mood at Anfield as an Arsenal player down the years – and co-commentator
Rob Hawthorne instinctively (and appropriately) adopted the sort of solemn,
hushed tone that one hears at funerals. There was no scope for any other
reaction: the Kop’s native stoicism prevented any self-pity or maudlin; realism
foreclosed any voluble and explicit condemnation of the player, now Liverpool’s sole experienced centre forward.
The cameras cut briefly to Gerrard, the man who has spent
the tail end of his career witnessing such disappointment. Heaven knows what
was going through his Steven Gerrard’s mind at the time of Suárez’s miss, or 36
hours earlier when the window was shut and curtains closed on Rodgers’s squad
reinforcements.
However, recognised or not, the forlorn skipper’s mood was
undoubtedly the greatest cause for solemnity. After all, this was surely the
moment (or the match, at least) when the long-cherished dream of a nineteenth
top-flight title – or a first, depending on your point of view – was finally,
irrevocably extinguished. No more sunrises.
Even the
flintiest of footballing hearts ought to acknowledge the transcendent suffering
in this. Perhaps out of respect, then, the camera refused to linger on Gerrard
for a second time that afternoon – for he had already had one abject look
beamed across the globe, having earlier been guilty of a careless, close-up
eliciting misplaced pass that led to the first goal (although to fail to
acknowledge the brilliance of Arsenal’s counter-attack would be a travesty).
Of course, the last time Stevie G struck up a swanky
partnership with a world-class Spanish-speaking forward, he was in his pitch-bestriding
physical prime – a phenomenally effective player whose strengths were rooted in
athleticism, courage and responsibility (even if those same traits meant
searching too hard and too often for the Hollywood pass) – while his ‘other
half’ was a stunner. His fling with Fernando Torres was a glorious, passionate affair
– a summer of countryside lovemaking and frolics across the Old Trafford turf –
but now the England
captain must cosy up to his new Uruguayan clinch without the vitality and soft
skin of his youth and with the grooves on that brow deepened as the furrowing
has grown more frequent.
Some may argue that it is still not too late for Gerrard at Liverpool, citing the fact that his performances at Euro
2012 – up until his front-row seat (or was it third?) for Andrea Pirlo’s regista masterclass – were widely
praised.
Yet there is the lingering impression that Rodgers’ way –
concerted pressing and ball possession, using the full acreage of the pitch to
achieve that – implicitly endorsed in Henry’s open letter might signal Gerrard
being eased toward the Anfield periphery (although the punditariat are already
getting twitchy and stuck in about playing out from the back). To provide
guile, the Ulsterman has brought in his trusty deep-lying midfield playmaker,
Joe Allen, along with Nuri Sahin; to add thrust, there’s Fabio Borini, Oussama
Assaidi and greenhorn Samed Yesil. In short, the component parts of Gerrard are
gradually being outsourced, a squad makeover that inevitably invites us to ask:
where does this leave Cap’n Stevie?
Slow revolutions are not ideal for the peace-of-mind of a
32-year-old for whom the competitive fires must continue to burn fiercely. He
still no doubt wants to play like the best in kid in primary school, the one
who scores 117 goals per season and is four inches taller than the others, but
the body’s protests are always reluctantly accepted by the mind and this
athlete-footballer doesn’t appear to have as straightforward a veterans’ niche
as, say, Paul Scholes, six years his senior, at Manchester United. Like a
favourite yet ageing dog who, happy to be off the leash, scampers after the
first couple of throws with alacrity before succumbing to the complaints of his
weary limbs, the veteran Gerrard must adapt, slow down, and stop chasing the ball all the time.
Even so, it is certainly not yet time for Liverpool
to look into the dimming, waxy eyes of this favourite Koppite pooch and make
the difficult decision of taking him on that
journey to the vets for that
injection. But tactical discipline and simplicity have never been his forte
(which is why Benítez moved him forward for his halcyon years, away from the
boiler room) and so the future remains unclear.
Either
way, if the Arsenal game is the definitive onset of Gerrard’s autumn,
physically and emotionally, then, as
his nights draw in – even, perhaps, as a new dawn approaches for Liverpool – we
do need some proper perspective on this final phase of his career, to take
stock of his contribution to the game on these shores. And respect would be the
correct tone.
Has he been frequently overrated in the British media? Perhaps.
A sower of chaos? Without doubt. But for better and for worse – both occasionally confusing
the positioning of teammates, yet providing considerable final-third cut and
thrust.
Yet beyond the partisans’ squabbles, the hype and the jibes, we should remember that Gerrard is that rare creature: a one-club man. And not a one-club man like Giggs and Scholes, Baresi and Maldini, Xavi and Puyol, with their trophy cabinets the size of swimming pools and thus scant incentive to think the grass could be greener anywhere else. No, here’s a one-club man for a team that, during his career, has rarely been truly competitive over the long course and which, perhaps increasingly burdened by its history, both glorious and tragic, has often struggled to punch its weight.
Here is a man who, while well remunerated for his work
(although he would surely have been equally so at Real Madrid, Chelsea or a
host of other suitors), has sacrificed opportunities for glory elsewhere
for the love of his club and for the dream of making its fans’ dreams come
true.
In this of all ages, supporters of all colours – even those
along the East Lancs Road
and across Stanley
Park – ought to
acknowledge and respect the old-fashioned virtues in that loyalty.
A version of this was
published by ESPN.
It’s fair to say the homoerotic passage
didn’t go down very well…
