1. His Tactical Ineptitude Held Both Him And Liverpool Back
Steven Gerrard is a wonderful footballer - that is to say, he can do wonderful things with a football. To deny that some of his picture book moments were some of the greatest ever seen in the game would not only be churlish, but wrong. His winner against Olympiakos, his equaliser in the FA Cup final, the commentator's cry of "Gerraaaaaaard" will love on long after he's retired. But, that said, he's not a wonderful footballer in the sense of actually being good at football. His understanding of the game, his reading of the situation, his positional discipline, all woefully failed to match his technical ability. There's good reason why the world's biggest clubs weren't testing Liverpool's resolve to keep ahold of him every single summer. During his time at Anfield Liverpool offered two major title challenges. The first was when Benitez gave him a free role with Alonso and Mascherano doing all the hard work, and the second was when Rodgers protected him by having Henderson and Allen run around in front of him. Gerrard's legacy will be a great one, but if he'd had the brain to match his feet it could have been so much more.
WhatCulture's Managing Editor and Chief Reporter | Previously seen in Vice, Esquire, FourFourTwo, Sabotage Times, Loaded, The Set Pieces, and Mundial Magazine
