In the enduring battle between Gerrard’s heart and head, it can be argued the Liverpool captain finally succumbed to logic. Liverpool are in transition again and he was seen as being a supporting act next season and beyond. It was time to leave them to it.
So often Gerrard has considered life beyond Anfield only to be pulled back via a persuasive manager, close friend or family member or reminder that whatever he won elsewhere, the feeling would be hollow.
Steven Gerrard drives into training after announcing his decision. Source: Reuters
There have been times it has felt Gerrard has convinced himself he should have no regrets. At a rough estimate, Gerrard has turned down 20 different offers to leave Anfield since 2004, the conscience of the fan the dominant influence. As each move and season passed one wondered if he made one sacrifice too many for the sake of a club which – as is usual in football – will only show its fullest appreciation now they know he is no longer going to be pulling on their shirt.
The legions of Liverpool supporters will never accept that his earlier flirtations with departure were rational, of course. No fan ever does. The Champions League win of 2005 certainly justified his decision to reject Chelsea the previous two summers, but the trajectory of his career after his final, post-Istanbul snub to Stamford Bridge will certainly be worthy of a more neutral appraisal.
His final league game for Liverpool on May 24 will be one day before the 10th anniversary of the AC Milan comeback. Since then Gerrard has won an FA Cup and the League Cup and been part of just two sustained title challenges. If he knew that was all that was on the table when he met ex-chairman David Moores in July 2005 to reverse a decision to move to London, the outcome might have been different.
Steven Gerrard's football career - by numbers But this is also what makes Gerrard so much greater and why he will always be admired more than his peers, because it is rare for such a world-class talent to so consistently put his club’s ambitions before his own.
Although salary issues have played no part in this and Gerrard has been rewarded handsomely for loyalty, the football industry is adept at bending its rules when it suits. Although many were saying the 34-year-old was no longer worth his contract, little consideration was given to how much more Gerrard would have earned had he left for Madrid at his peak - or how much it would have cost to replace him. He has regularly saved Liverpool financially and emotionally. Clubs and supporters always want to keep players on their own terms. That is why it is fitting Gerrard has made the final call, leaving many wanting more.
Gerrard lifts the League Cup in 2012. Source: AFP
Each of the managers he played for can testify how often he heard their pleas to stay in the face of lucrative offers from abroad, Real Madrid constantly pursued him between 2006-2010, as did Inter Milan when they were European Cup challengers and Bayern Munich when looking for an elder statesman to guide their emerging team a few years ago. Add Roma and AC Milan to the list. Every summer since 2004 there was a decision to make.
Whether it was Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish or Brendan Rodgers, the appeal to the heart from Merseyside was the same.
Gerrard stayed under Benitez because he saw a golden future, competing for the top honours and playing in the Champions League every season. With the rest, the loyalty stemmed from seeing the club decimated from other departures.
Gerrard saw a golden future under Rafa Benitez. Source: Getty Images
He felt the pain of the supporters when Michael Owen, Xabi Alonso, Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres moved on and knew the implications if he swiftly followed. He’d have been unable to watch Liverpool’s decline from afar as the ache to get back to sort out the mess of others’ making would have been overwhelming.
Now there will be a six-month celebration of everything Gerrard achieved and represented at Liverpool, but you can also compile lists of the broken promises he suffered which sterner critics might argue sweet-talked as much as convinced him to stay as long as he has.
Throughout his Liverpool career the club has been adept at releasing statements claiming it is on the verge of a revival, as if another 12 months of pain for their greatest of players would yield its reward. That the latest came from the current hierarchy just 24 hours before Gerrard’s announcement has a certain poignancy as so many Anfield observers have heard it all before.
Liverpool are a long way from competing for the title again, which is sheer negligence given how close they were last season, however much it is spun, and those six calamitous Champions League games are never coming back.
Gerrard’s career was defined by his European exploits but his ambitions and the club’s did not tally after a five-year absence.
Gerrard was forced to endorse the disastrous Hicks-Gillett reign. Source: Getty Images
It has been a recurring theme. There was the takeover calamity of 2007, when Gerrard was pushed forward whether he liked it or not to endorse the buy-out of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, the American businessman cunningly realising the captain’s approval would create a sense of trust.
Gerrard briefly felt reassured when players such as Torres and Mascherano arrived, until the political in-fighting between all sections of the club left him disillusioned and he came close to leaving again in the summer of 2010.
Liverpool appointed Roy Hodgson and Gerrard decided to stay then because he foresaw a much bleaker Anfield future and felt the new manager needed all the help he could get as others downed tools.
Kenny Dalglish’s appointment six months later required a similar pledge of loyalty, approaches from the European elite no longer playing out so publicly. When Dalglish was replaced by Rodgers, his first call from the Northern Irishman was to Gerrard.
At clubs such as Chelsea, the senior players have broken new managers who endured tough starts, and it has not been appreciated enough how Gerrard – and Jamie Carragher while he was still at the club – rallied behind every new appointment and afforded him the time their coaching talent deserved.
The obvious highlights are the cup wins and defining goals, but a personal favourite memory came shortly after Gerrard broke into the team in the late 90s. Paul Ince was moved on to Middlesbrough to create a vacancy for Gerrard in midfield, and shortly after misread the mood on Merseyside entirely by delivering a damning interview criticising Houllier and Phil Thompson for selling him. The words were fresh when Gerrard hit Ince with a crunching, ball-winning tackle at The Riverside Stadium. It felt like the moment the boy from Huyton was moving the Liverpool team in a different direction.
A young Gerrard back in 1998. Source: PA
When similar criticism was delivered in the early reign of Benitez and Rodgers, Gerrard spoke as if he was similarly wounded, appealing for time on the manager’s behalf.
This is why Gerrard has been more than just a player. He has been the embodiment of the club. He has been part-captain, part-spokesman, part-social worker, part-psychiatrist and part-ambassador alongside his day job of being the visual manifestation of the club’s aspirations.
His final game as player will be at Anfield against Crystal Palace on May 16 but that can never be the end of his Liverpool story. They should erect a statue in his honour, holding the fifth European Cup, when they have built the new Main Stand. Then, when he is no longer playing, they should make the first phonecall to get him back where he belongs in a coaching capacity.
Liverpool has been bereft of men of such wisdom for too long, which is why Gerrard’s loss will hurt in the dressing room, dug-out and directors box as much as on the pitch.
When Gerrard bids farewell, owners FSG will look around at what is left at Anfield and swiftly realise just how daunting a task they face without him. They should map out a plan to figure out how they will eventually re-connect with the conscience of their club.
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