Earlier this week, Steven Gerrard hung up his boots after a glistening 19-year career.
The Liverpool legend captained England at three major tournaments en route to 114 Three Lions caps, lifted a Champions League title, two FA Cups, three League Cups and one UEFA Cup with the Reds and will be remembered as arguably the greatest midfielder of his generation.
Yet, the 36-year-old’s loyalty to Liverpool, especially when coupled with England’s continued failings since 1966, has left a legacy of what could have been. Indeed, Gerrard was a fantastic player and won plenty of silverware – but probably not enough to accurately represent how talented he actually was.
So with Captain Fantastic finally calling time on his playing days, FootballFanCast feel compelled to provide an answer to those hypothetical questions of alternate realities, where Gerrard took a different path upon meeting a crossroads in his career.
We’ve taken a look at the three biggest ‘What Ifs’ still lingering over Gerrard’s playing days and attempted to provide an answer to each.
The Chelsea move
Back in 2005, Gerrard infamously came within a whisker of signing for Chelsea – with The Telegraph’s Henry Winter even covering the story as essentially a ‘done deal’ in July. He’d handed in a transfer request just a matter of weeks after lifting the Champions League title and even publicly expressed his disappointment at the modest contract extension Liverpool had offered him.
The Blues made a succession of bids – and some claim Gerrard even headed down to London for talks. But as Reds fans launched cries of treason and labelled the England midfielder a Judas – some even burning Gerrard 17 shirts outside of Anfield – Captain Fantastic elected to stay with his boyhood club.
What if he’d joined?
Of course, predicting to what extent Gerrard would have strengthened Chelsea will always be an inaccurate science. But considering Jose Mourinho’s boys swept away the Premier League the following season, whilst Liverpool had to settle for the FA Cup, it’s pretty safe to assume Gerrard would have gone on to win at least one league title, the ultimate accolade he famously missed out on, during his time at Stamford Bridge.
Mourinho later revealed his regret in failing to convince Gerrard to move to west London and the Liverpool legend’s abilities may well have reached even greater proportions (if possible) working under the most successful manager of the mid-to-late 2000s. Furthermore and perhaps more importantly, playing alongside Frank Lampard on a weekly basis may have solved the conundrum that haunted the Three Lions for over a decade – how to effectively fit them both into the same midfield.
The Slip
Poetic justice at its finest, the writing was on the wall when Gerrard celebrated a huge 3-2 victory over title rivals Manchester City, poignantly on the same week as the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, by calling a huddle and declaring to his team-mates ‘don’t let this slip!’
A fortnight later when the Reds hosted Chelsea, now effectively out of the title race, at Anfield, that’s exactly what happened. The Blues rarely ventured out of their own third and continually time-wasted in an effort to frustrate Liverpool into making an error, which unfortunately came from Gerrard as he slipped on the centre circle with the ball at his feet – allowing Demba Ba a full half of the pitch to run into and eventually slot past Simon Mignolet. Liverpool pushed forward in a late effort to level the scores, allowing Chelsea to grab another on the counter.
What if the slip never happened?
Based on the momentum of the game, it’s logical to assume the Chelsea match would have ended as a scoreless draw – something Mourinho appeared prepared to accept from the opening whistle, which would have left the Reds at least four points ahead of City with two games left to go and at least one point ahead after their title rivals’ game in hand – a 3-2 win over Everton.
But more significantly, it would have avoided the circumstances that ultimately lead to Liverpool’s capitulation in the title race against Crystal Palace the following weekend. The Reds found themselves three goals ahead of the Eagles after an hour but behind City on goal difference in the league table and felt compelled to take the opportunity to catch up in the scoring columns against seemingly surrendered opposition.
However, the attacking push spectacularly backfired as Palace staged a three-goal comeback in an unforgettable night at Selhurst Park. Gerrard can’t take much blame for that – unlike Liverpool’s shaky defence – but his infamous role in Chelsea’s 2-0 win was the underlying cause of the need to accumulate a healthy scoring margin against Palace.
So if we logically assume Liverpool drew against Chelsea, held tight after going 3-0 up against Palace and beat Newcastle on the final day of the campaign, Gerrard would have captained the Reds to their first ever Premier League title by two points.
The misplaced header
Few place blame on Gerrard for England’s continued failings throughout his international career. In fact, he was one of the few players who could be relied upon to bring something close to his club form to the national team and captained the Three Lions at three major tournaments. But at the 2014 World Cup, he was undoubtedly at fault as a 2-1 defeat to Uruguay confirmed England’s exit from the group stages.
The match had produced little real quality but England were at least on course to claim a point – after losing the first match to Italy – when a Glen Johnson cross found Wayne Rooney in the 75th minute to draw the Three Lions level following an earlier Luis Suarez goal.
But as the South Americans launched a high and hopeful hoof towards their frontline, Gerrard’s effort to clear became more a glancing header, spinning the ball into the path of his then-Liverpool team-mate, who put it past Joe Hart to seal England’s fate.
What if Gerrard headed clear?
Although we can’t rule out some last-minute magic from the brace-bagger, Suarez, England were pretty much set to claim a point in Sao Paulo. That would still have left them bottom of Group D with just one point but at least given England hope of making it through to the next round by beating Costa Rica and other results going in their favour.
However, if the rest of history remained unchanged, that second Suarez goal wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Costa Rica beat Italy the next day to secure qualification with six points, whilst Italy and Uruguay would’ve had four and three points respectively going into the final match – meaning any result would have sent one of them through alongside the Costa Ricans.
Of course, it could be argued an England-Uruguay draw would have influenced the Costa Rica win over Italy and possibly changed the result, creating a scenario where the Three Lions could have made the knockout rounds. But considering how woefully poor England have been over the last twenty years, both in terms of playing style and results, it’s safe to say Gerrard wouldn’t have guided his country to a World Cup anyway.
