greatest

Steven Gerrard's announcement that he will leave Liverpool at the end of this present season is no real surprise.

From the moment he lost the ball for their first goal in the game against Chelsea last season, he's had the look and attitude of a defeated man. But even that is usually off the scale in most other players' abilities by a country mile. He's shown glimpses of his brilliance, notably the free kick against Basel, so far, but mostly he looks destroyed.

Neither was it his greatest idea to captain a below-average England team during the 2014 World Cup. He looked totally out of his depth and...knackered to be honest. But this is just minor moans.

He's been mostly acclaimed to be the greatest Liverpool player ever, and if he isn't he's only a gnat's whisker behind Kenny Dalglish. This is understandable, but a complete knee-jerk reaction to a wider picture that neglects so many great players.

I saw Jan Molby's ball skills that defied physics. I saw John Barnes rampage through defences at pace with the ball stuck to his feet. I saw Ian Rush find the net 346 times without even thinking about it. I saw Graeme Souness, Steve Nicol, Fernando Torres, Emlyn Hughes, Patrik Berger, Sami Hyppia, Bruce Grobbelaar, etc, etc, the list goes on........

Would Gerrard have prospered in those 70s / 80s Liverpool sides that rampaged across Europe winning everything in sight? Of course he would, and he'd have been an integral part of the set up - if not the kingpin.

What sets Steven apart from those great players and impossibly brilliant sides is he's spent his entire career at Liverpool surrounded by, with notable exceptions, shite.  Through force of character, determination and single-mindedness, he led these quite average Reds teams to some of the greatest victories in our history. Jan Kromkamp - FA Cup winner anyone?????

What will determine Steven Gerrard's place as one of our greatest players will be time and perspective. In ten years time, if public opinion still favours Gerrard in the same tones as now, that will be a proper measure of the man and the player.