Steven Gerrard

Kinnell Brwned, I'll assume you're correct. Which means I have to modify my position to: Gerrard only plays CM v the lesser teams and isn't very good at it.
 
Top said:
Ps. Did you notice O'Shea did his "ball under/over foot" when trying to stop it-move again? It's soon as famous as the Zidane turn or Ronaldinho flip-flap.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been noticing this.

and to think, we had him playing in goal at one point
 
Doevle said:
Why did you ask for it then?

Welcome back anyway, we'll expect an increase in activity with 150% on the Caf now that you're back;)
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Spent far too much time on here over my study break, so I really needed to take a bit of a step back like.

:D

Anything much happen while I was away?
 
Can somebody photoshop stevie and robinho with a prison break gif? :devil:
 
Brwned said:
7 wins from 10 does imply that he isn’t a liability in midfield either, although obviously that’s slightly tainted by the fact it’s at home but still, I think it shows the term liability is exaggerating things no doubt.

Gerrard’s a top player, everyone can see that – his shooting, ability to cut through defences with raw pace and power and timing of runs into the box make him a massive threat goals-wise, and I think his set pieces are quite underrated too – quite a few goals have come from his free kicks or corners. His passing*, dribbling, shooting and first touch all show his technical ability, which allied with his pace, power and drive makes him a great player all round.
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I enjoy stats, so thanks for the summary.

My conclusions from them would be slightly different from yours though.

As you point out most of the matches were at home, in fact 8/10. And, except for the fact that Liverpool are Liverpool, one would expect wins in most of them, with Everton away being the sole really difficult one. They won seven of those, and, although losing none, that's the least they should have.

So is Gerrard a liability? The results they've collected from these ten matches are decent or good, but not very good. Liverpool's performances have been average, and Gerrard was (according to you) only impressive a couple of times. But what's more telling is that Benitez is clearly reluctant to play him there in the toughest matches.

I would think that most of the top four are willing to take some risks in most of these matches, i.e. play Gerrard at CM even though he's a bit of a liability, or resting Neville and Carrick for Rafael and Anderson - these kinds of things. They would still get the results more often than not, and therefore 7 wins out of 10 doesn't really imply that Gerrard is no liability.
 
Here's a stat for you all, a stat I made up but have decided is 100% correct. Steven Gerrard will be remembered as the greatest player to ever play for Liverpool and just like Carragher Giggs and Scholes we won't realise just how good they were until they've packed it in.

Disraeli.
 
Laphroaig said:
I enjoy stats, so thanks for the summary.

My conclusions from them would be slightly different from yours though.

As you point out most of the matches were at home, in fact 8/10. And, except for the fact that Liverpool are Liverpool, one would expect wins in most of them, with Everton away being the sole really difficult one. They won seven of those, and, although losing none, that's the least they should have.

So is Gerrard a liability? The results they've collected from these ten matches are decent or good, but not very good. Liverpool's performances have been average, and Gerrard was (according to you) only impressive a couple of times. But what's more telling is that Benitez is clearly reluctant to play him there in the toughest matches.

I would think that most of the top four are willing to take some risks in most of these matches, i.e. play Gerrard at CM even though he's a bit of a liability, or resting Neville and Carrick for Rafael and Anderson - these kinds of things. They would still get the results more often than not, and therefore 7 wins out of 10 doesn't really imply that Gerrard is no liability.
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I disagree with your first point about them expecting to win every home game - their home form's been a big weakness for them this season and it's unrealistic to expect them to win every home match, IMO.

The second part I agree with for the most part, although you should be aware that my take on Gerrard's performances in those matches may be slightly tainted by the fact I didn't see every match he played in, and so 2 or 3 were based on highlights in which he might have played better than I thought.

The last line I agree with, but I didn't say that stat in itself proves he isn't a liability, it was the collection of them that did it.

The fact that he played nearly half of his games in centre mid under Benitez implies he doesn't think he's a liability.
 
I'd still say Gerrard is a shadow of a player when he is in a 2 man central midfield. No way is he anywhere near Keane's class in that respect.
 
noodlehair said:
He's an excellent central midfielder.

If he partnered Alonso in the middle it'd be the best central midfield in the league. Problem is Liverpool only have one other attacking player who isn't shite, and Benitez is a bit of a gimp, so he gets played further up the pitch or out wide to suit Benitez's strange tactics and consistently rubbish signings
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Bull shite.

Even Stan Collymore makes more sense.
 
FlawlessThaw said:
I'd still say Gerrard is a shadow of a player when he is in a 2 man central midfield. No way is he anywhere near Keane's class in that respect.
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He's rubbish as a central midfielder, for the reason he lacks footballing brains. Benetiz figured out his disruptive influence often had caned him publicly for playing from his heart than from his head, like chasing the ball like a yard dog and exposing the defence and he finally played him on the right or as an attacking forward infront of two proper midfielders Alonso and Mascherano.

A midfield version of Roberto Carlos, a player runs a lot without vision and little end product but can find the net often with a wonderful striking technique on his stronger foot. Davo is a forum version of Gerrard, talks a lot but makes little footballing sense.
 
Brwned said:
I know there's already some debate about it but I thought I'd start a whole new thread on it.

There's the myth going round that Gerrard never plays centre mid any more, or never plays well there, so I decided to look up the stats for this season with the games he played at centre mid, along with the team performance and the possession stats.

54% - Everton(H) – 1-1, average performance from both Gerrard and Liverpool, popped up with a great goal mind - He was rubbish except for the goal

74% - Bolton(H) – 3-0, great performance(from the team, Gerrard got two assists but was taken off early and was in and out of the game a lot).
He was rubbish except for the assists


67% - West Ham(H) – 0-0, poor performance from both, very wasteful.

52% - West Brom(H) – 3-0, good performance(and 2 assists for Gerrard)

Never a dominating performance but not bad

64% - Wigan(H) – 3-2, mixed performance, very open and I think Gerrard should take some blame for that.

He was rubbish again

60% - Everton(A) – 2-0, good performance from the team, but I personally thought Gerrard went missing a bit.

He went missing certainly not by a bit but more. Pool played well

76% - Stoke(H) – 0-0, very good performance but just lacking the killer touch(and a bit of luck, really)

? - Standard Liege(H) – 1-0, lacklustre performance all round.

62% - Middlesborough(H) – 2-1, average performance by the team but Gerrard was the main player trying to make something happen.

He was rubbish not a performance expected from a so called midfielder from the top brass

59% - Sunderland(A) – 1-0, what some people would call your typical Gerard game, plenty of last ditch blocks and shots from all round, but poor at doing the simple things right. Obviously this isn’t a typical performance from him, and it might have had something to do with him playing alongside Plessis.

Evidently he plays in centre mid more than people seem to think, but most of them are at home which shows Rafa obviously thinks it’s a risk to play him there at times, which adds to the claims he’s not particularly good positionally.

Personally I think Gerrard had genuinely great games against West Brom and Stoke.

All this so called goals and assist stat should take in to account the number of time he tried hard through out a match and gave the ball away.

7 wins from 10 does imply that he isn’t a liability in midfield either, although obviously that’s slightly tainted by the fact it’s at home but still, I think it shows the term liability is exaggerating things no doubt.

Gerrard’s a top player, everyone can see that – his shooting, ability to cut through defences with raw pace and power and timing of runs into the box make him a massive threat goals-wise, and I think his set pieces are quite underrated too – quite a few goals have come from his free kicks or corners. His passing*, dribbling, shooting and first touch all show his technical ability, which allied with his pace, power and drive makes him a great player all round.
*Yes, I do think his passing technique is good, he does give it away fairly often but that has more to do with his decision-making in that he looks for the forward pass too much, like Giggs, or even better Anderson I think the technique is there but their style doesn’t complement it.



Well he’s played just under half of his games in the centre this season, which is 38% of the matches. Last season he played 24 games in the centre – W-13 D-7 L-4 – which is more than half as he played 46 games in total. In 06/07 he played 24 games again – W-15 D-5 L-4 – from a total of 47 games, again just over half. In the 05/06 season he did get moved about more, only playing 17 matches in the middle – W-10 D-5 L-2 – out of a total of 44 matches which is quite a bit lower(39%).

All in all that’s 75 matches in centre mid out of a total of 163 matches including this season, which means he played 46% of his matches there since the start of 2005, i.e. in 3 and a half years.

Should hopefully put the myth that he never plays centre mid to bed.
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You lot rate a midfielder quantifying only the late runs they make in to the box. Gerrard for instance is never a midfielder, he is an old fashioned inside forward synonymous with the English football of the 70's.

Keane for instance, whenever he partnered either Scholes or Butt shifted his attacking gears brilliantly and even when he was covering attacking players from behind you could hardly see him move beyond the line of the ball. Diego once said Makelele was the most difficult player he has come up against, impossible to get away with. Any proper midfielder be it Keane, Scholes, Viera or Fabregas, its their footballing brains and reading of the game that cuts them apart from the rest.

Gerrard lacks the ability to read the game, offers nothing defensively apart from homicidal two footed tackles only premiership refs would ignore and it always requires two players to cover his back side when he makes his runs forward, it appears he's all over the park eventhough he is positionally dumb.. His creative deliveries lacks guile you can normally find from an attacking forward, all stone cold hits in the general direction of his team mate without velocity and it takes two touches to control even a 10 yard square ball from him.

He has a strong running ability and a wonderful striking technique with his right foot, and usually makes up for his lack of skills in other facets of the game by chasing shadows for 90 minutes. He's fast becoming the new Alan Shearer of English football but at least Shearer was successful for England to warrant sops from the league refs.
 
vijay said:
You lot rate a midfielder quantifying only the late runs they make in to the box.
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Went down in my estimation there Vijay.

Disagree all you want but that's a wild acusation, and a bollocks one at that.
 
Brwned said:
Went down in my estimation there Vijay.

Disagree all you want but that's a wild acusation, and a bollocks one at that.
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It's true to a large extent, Alonso so far has been the best player for Liverpool in some of the matches I've watched this season but hardly he gets credited for his consistency whilst Gerrard playing in a so called midfield position plays a rubbish match but creates or scores a goal after too many failed attempts and the pundits easily single him out as the MOM. Its for the reason Scholes or a Vieria never got the recognition in the premiership they always deserved.
 
vijay said:
It's true to a large extent, Alonso so far has been the best player for Liverpool in some of the matches I've watched this season but hardly he gets credited for his consistency whilst Gerrard playing in a so called midfield position plays a rubbish match and creates or scores a goal after too many missed attempted and the pundits easily single him out as the MOM. Its for the reason Scholes or a Vieria never got the recognition in the premiership they always deserved.
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Alonso's been talked up as the best player in the league by many this season.

It may be true to some extent, but don't paint me with that brush.
 
I'm not reading through this thread. Seems too boring.

But what I will say - Liverpool are 2nd in the league. I doubt they care very much that Gerrard hasn't been playing well as a part of a 2 man midfield, because he's been excellent all season imo. He's a fantastic player, anyone that says otherwise is just stupid, or completely blinkered.
 
What has Gerrard won when playing centre mid? Look at his pass completion stats and compare them to Scholes. Thats the difference. Gerrard is a fantastic individual but not a great team player.
 
Brwned said:
I disagree with your first point about them expecting to win every home game - their home form's been a big weakness for them this season and it's unrealistic to expect them to win every home match, IMO.
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Which is why I said "except for the fact that Liverpool are Liverpool". They should expect better home form than what they've shown, but they've been incapable of breaking down defensive minded teams at Anfield. It's not unrealistic to expect them to win relatively easy matches at their home, even though they are struggling to actually do this.

The last line I agree with, but I didn't say that stat in itself proves he isn't a liability, it was the collection of them that did it.
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I'm aware of that, you said "implies" (as did I) - not "proves".

The fact that he played nearly half of his games in centre mid under Benitez implies he doesn't think he's a liability.
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Hm, I don't know. When one looks at the matches Benitez has played Gerrard at CM, it's hard not to notice that he avoids it in the tougher matches. But on the other hand it can be argued that it's a logical thing to do when you play against teams where you're expecting to have to try and break down the opposition, since less defensive ability and discipline are needed.

The term 'liability' is a bit vague I suppose, but it's pretty safe to say that in an important game against difficult opposition, Gerrard wouldn't be starting at CM, and for good reason.

vijay said:
It's true to a large extent, Alonso so far has been the best player for Liverpool in some of the matches I've watched this season but hardly he gets credited for his consistency whilst Gerrard playing in a so called midfield position plays a rubbish match but creates or scores a goal after too many failed attempts and the pundits easily single him out as the MOM. Its for the reason Scholes or a Vieria never got the recognition in the premiership they always deserved.
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Brwned, who you replied to, is probably Alonso's most hard headed advocate around here, so you are off target with this one.
 
Don16 said:
I'm not reading through this thread. Seems too boring.

But what I will say - Liverpool are 2nd in the league. I doubt they care very much that Gerrard hasn't been playing well as a part of a 2 man midfield, because he's been excellent all season imo. He's a fantastic player, anyone that says otherwise is just stupid, or completely blinkered.
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3rd actually.

Happy to correct that for you!
 
Brwned said:
His passing*, dribbling, shooting and first touch all show his technical ability, which allied with his pace, power and drive makes him a great player all round.
*Yes, I do think his passing technique is good, he does give it away fairly often but that has more to do with his decision-making in that he looks for the forward pass too much, like Giggs, or even better Anderson I think the technique is there but their style doesn’t complement it.
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He doesn't have the passing technique of a top CM. He has a good range but he doesn't weigh his passes to keep a move flowing as well as players like Scholes, Pirlo, Xavi, even Carrick or Alonso. He also seems unable to pass a ball without curl on it.

He isn't a good dribbler. Like you said, he cuts through defences with raw pace and power.

And IMO, he bombs forward too often for it to be considered good timing like the good old Scholes.

Great player mind. Just an unusual mix of qualities.
 
Murphman said:
Here's a stat for you all, a stat I made up but have decided is 100% correct. Steven Gerrard will be remembered as the greatest player to ever play for Liverpool and just like Carragher Giggs and Scholes we won't realise just how good they were until they've packed it in.

Disraeli.
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Who did Disraeli play for? I imagine he was inside-right or something. ;)

Gerrard should not be remembered as the greatest player to play for you - he is very good, I admit - but you have had some great players in the past:
Dalglish, Keegan, Callaghan, Barnes (but not for England), Beardsley, Hunt, Rush, Cisse for instance. (OK not Cisse)

Carragher is good at retrieving situations but is often the cause. I think we already know how good he really is. If he had been playing at Arsenal or Everton, for instance, you'd be agreeing with me.

Giggs and Scholes - well we know how good they have been, maybe lost a bit now but when they were young they were tremendous.
 
Playing today in centre mid against Arsenal, and has started quite well.

Will be interesting to see if he gets many games in centre mid for Liverpool throughout the season.
 
He's playing as a "passer" today. Showed some good range. Interesting to see how he gets on. The key will be how Joe Cole plays in Gerrard's old role to see if Liverpool have lost anything or not. So far Cole has been a non entity.
 
I thought Cole was doing a surprisingly good job on Diaby when they weren't in possession so I wouldn't be surprised to see him get into the game much more now he's been sent off.
 
Alot of people being dicks to Brwned in this thread back in the past.. Whats wrong with abit of Stat research jeez
 
Gerrard has always been inconsistent in central midfield. Some brilliant performances where he'll drag Liverpool kicking and screaming to three points, but then in the very next game he'll be constantly out of position and giving the ball straight back to the opposition with his 'Hollywood' balls.

I always thought as he got older he'd learn to be consistent there, but it hasn't happened yet.
 
MadDogg said:
Gerrard has always been inconsistent in central midfield. Some brilliant performances where he'll drag Liverpool kicking and screaming to three points, but then in the very next game he'll be constantly out of position and giving the ball straight back to the opposition with his 'Hollywood' balls.

I always thought as he got older he'd learn to be consistent there, but it hasn't happened yet.
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To be fair the last 3-4 seasons hes played as a SS/left/right so it would be hard for him to learn the correct positions
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Should add that I like stats. Often the only way to cut through the mish-mash of opinion, out-dated consensus and good old-fashioned bullshit that makes up 87.6% (+/- 0.3%) of the posts on redcafe.
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Stats are completely pointless You can't discuss or debate football using quantitative data
 
I think I finally understand what Rafa meant when he said Gerrard was playing with 'too much passion' one time. There was a moment in the first half where he dangerously tackled Eboue and it was simply from pure adrenaline. There was absolutely no need to slide tackle anybody from that position and in the context, it was just silly and he could've easily been red carded for it.
 
The first post in this thread is somewhat ridiculously sad.

Although I am very curious to how well Torres will adapt to having Cole off him instead this season and Gerrard back at CM consistently instead of being thrown around everywhere, how is anyone supposed to work when they are being played in like 5 positions throughout a season.

Hopefully it works and Fabio sees this and gets Rodwell in the middle with him and Wilshere in the Cole position with Rooney obviously.
 
6 - Liverpool haven't won any of the six Premier League games that Steven Gerrard has started this season. Waiting.
 
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