I know lots of fans want me back as Liverpool boss one day…
DANNY MURPHY: Stevie, when did you start fancy being a manager? I wouldn’t have said you did in the early days. Even as a young captain, you weren’t entirely comfortable taking meetings with the lads.
STEVEN GERRARD: Being the skipper at 23 was out of my comfort zone. I loved leading the boys out but standing up in front of Jamie Carragher and Robbie Fowler, people I’d watched, was hard. My first talk to the Rangers players reminded me of that. I got through it but came out thinking: ‘I need more practice.’
I’d have predicted 100 per cent Carra would be a manager. You as well, probably. For me, it changed in my thirties. I’d watch Brendan Rodgers and it looked as if he really enjoyed it. He suggested I took my coaching badges.
DM: The best thing about you being captain was you’d get the tickets!
SG: Half the main stand was your lot from Chester I reckon.
DM: Gerard Houllier was manager. Rafa [Benitez] and Jurgen [Klopp] have won the Champions League. I feel Gerard is a bit under-appreciated in laying the foundations.
SG: He revolutionised the standards at Liverpool. He changed diets, training, introduced the first fitness coach and better personnel.
DM: No mobile phones, all wear the same colour T-shirts.
SG: The ketchup went. At the time, we were ‘What’s this?’ I remember Gerard going against Robbie and Incey [Paul Ince]. If you weren’t prepared to go along with what he wanted, you were out. He wanted to know exactly what I was doing off the pitch. He took me and my mum and dad to dinner and I was left under no illusions. The message to my parents was don’t let him go out and drink and pick his mates carefully. It had to be this way or I wouldn’t be around Liverpool for long.
DM: He’d stop you in training for chats. He’d notice if you hadn’t shaved. I’d not had that with any other manager. Do you remember we’d leave our hotel room open hoping he’d pop his head in and drop us the team? It worked once: ‘Don’t tell anyone but be ready for tomorrow.’
SG: We’d be jumping around the room. We had all the tricks. Eating slowly in the canteen to be last with the manager, hoping he’d give you the nod about the line-up. When I think now, winning the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup in one season was incredible. Think what a club like Spurs or Everton would give for that?
DM: We preferred playing in the middle but someone had to do the graveyard shift on the right or left.
SG: Honest to God it used to proper pull on my insides when I’d be playing on the right. Not so much at 19 or 20 but Rafa did it to me later on. I felt out of it. I grew up in the middle of the pitch and liked looking for the ball, probably too much.
DM: Has that influenced the way you manage? I think being open does create respect.
SG: If a player is coming out the team, I’ll try to have a respectful chat why. It may not be a case of being dropped but needing a blow after a run of games. When I played, nothing was said. You’d get in the car wondering where you stood. You can’t communicate like that all the time. But if it’s a big fixture and someone was expecting to play and could be down, an explanation definitely helps.
DM: People will assume you’re the next Liverpool manager because of your status as a player.
SG: I understand why because I was captain for so long and a large chunk of the fanbase would like me back at the
‘IF THINGS TURN BAD IN A COUPLE OF MONTHS YOU ARE OUT OF WORK. THAT IS HOW BRUTAL THIS JOB IS.’
but the owners have to think I’m good enough first! club. But I’m bright enough to realise that you have to be good enough. The owners need to think you’re the right man.
Let’s say Klopp wins the Premier League, Champions League and goes because he feels he can’t do any more. They aren’t going to pick me if I am only the 20th best candidate.
And nobody asks if I think I need two or three goes elsewhere. If I got the chance [at
Liverpool] I’d want to be best prepared. You can’t plan everything season by season. If things turn in months, you’d be out of work. That’s how brutal the job is, but you are aware before you go in. Jurgen Klopp told me he’d made two years of mistakes away from the cameras, getting his pitch confidence. That is what I did at Liverpool with the youngsters. I didn’t go into Rangers thinking I’d cracked it. Am I ready for the Liverpool job right now? Maybe not.
DM: I know you’ll want to try to win everything with Rangers but the fans have to be happy with the past 20 months, closer to Celtic and a run in Europe.
SG: I’m pleased. We’ve improved the team, stadium, training ground, medical department and sport science. There has been progress, but I don’t sit back content. I need to keep pushing this in every way. We are 10 points or so better off than last year but so are Celtic. It is still a huge challenge. It is hard to chase something that is powerful and improving themselves. Can we get there? I have belief.
DM: From the outside, you’ve swapped one goldfish bowl for another, Liverpool for Glasgow, with time in Los Angeles in between.
SG: Liverpool and Glasgow have similarities but it’s different for me. I had to live in Liverpool with my family. It’s my city. I go to schools, shops, out and about. I
I had a lump in my throat because Kenny was next door to me crying after our Champions League win last year.
went to America because I’d been in Liverpool all my life and wanted a different experience. I didn’t enjoy the ending at Liverpool either. Partly because of the Chelsea thing, coming so close to winning the league but also because it felt they’d offered me a year’s contract because I was Steven Gerrard and they didn’t want the fan backlash. Deep down, I thought they wanted me to go.
DM: That’s how it looked. It happened to Frank Lampard at Chelsea. It happened to me at Fulham. We’d had the best season in the club’s history and they gestured me a contract. You’re left feeling it’s time to leave.
SG: That was the reality for me but it still hurt. I didn’t want to play for another team in this country, but I didn’t want to stop playing. Would I have done things differently in hindsight? Yes, because things changed at Liverpool. If I’d signed a year extension, I may have got a chance to play for Klopp, which would have been a different learning curve. But from a lifestyle point of view, and me freshening up for the next challenge in my life, it was probably the right thing.
DM: It was hard for Jordan Henderson to follow you as Liverpool captain but in the past two years I’ve thought ‘Wow’. He’ll never be you but he has become a great leader. I wouldn’t want to play against him. I think he’s the first name in England’s midfield for Euro 2020.
SG: We both know there are players who are ‘at it’ every day. I appreciated Jordan’s power and fitness by training with him. Some players play for themselves, Jordan does the dirty running, grappling for second balls, 12 or 13km Saturday and Wednesday, again and again. Teams can’t function at Liverpool’s level without a cog like Jordan. He’s obviously going be a Premier League winner. I look at him and think: good for you.
He has that confidence now. He has lifted the European Cup above his head. I don’t deserve one iota of credit, he has done it all himself, but I remember a chat with Jordan in LA a while ago and he wasn’t sure whether he was coming or going at the club. I remember saying to him don’t give up on Liverpool, you’ll be fine. I knew what he had inside and that he would get there.
DM: Where did you watch the Champions League final win against Spurs?
SG: I went. It was the first time I’d been to a final as a fan. I’d done TV work at the 2018 final when they lost to Real Madrid but I thought I’d accept Liverpool’s invite this time, have a nice glass of wine and be with Kenny [Dalglish], Rushy [Ian Rush] and all the staff.
I had a lump in my throat because Kenny was next door to me crying.
I ended up more emotional because Kenny was crying rather than the result! There were some players there from the back end of my era. I knew the pain we’d been through.
DM: You’re celebrating a 40th birthday this year. Planning anything for the big day, May 30?
SG: Don’t mention it, I’ve got greys popping out all over the gaff! I’ll be with my family. My daughter is doing GCSEs and her half-term falls right on my birthday. So, a real family celebration, no plans for football.
DM: I don’t see many worry lines. Must be the botox!
SG: You didn’t see me a couple of weeks ago when we lost at Kilmarnock! I remember Rafa Benitez saying to me as a manager you have to be a good actor. Put the face on. Sometimes you feel angry but be positive. When you’re manager, people follow your lead.
DM: Houllier would go into a back room to gather his thoughts. Even if he was fuming, he’d be calm in front of the camera.
SG: I need to get better at that.
DM: You were excited after beating Celtic.
SG: I’ll never apologise for being authentic. I am passionate after a win. I don’t think people on the outside understand the pressures you are under in that moment. I do ask myself if it was too much but then I think Celtic beat Aberdeen last weekend, and 11 players and Neil Lennon are jumping about and celebrating with the fans. I’m totally fine with it.
There are still parts of me where I do things and think ‘I could’ve done that a little bit better’. And I don’t think that will ever go away.
DM: Self-analysis is good. If you don’t do it, you are arrogant. You’re in your second season as a manager, Frank Lampard is in his second season. Funny how your careers are so closely aligned.
SG: I admire Frank for his bottle, leading Chelsea in the biggest league in the world during a transfer ban. I’m proud of him as a former team-mate.
There will naturally be a comparison to me and Frank because there was when we were players. Could we play together? Who was better? There is still an element of that but the reality is we are in completely different jobs.
DM: I’d like to see it become a top managerial rivalry over the next 10 or 15 years.
SG: So would I. I’m sure Frank has had the same thoughts. But I’d also love to become a rival to Jose Mourinho. Even now, I am a rival to Neil Lennon and Derek McInnes. I hope I’m involved in this game a long time, but we know a bad couple of years and I’ll be sitting next to you on Match of the Day.
DM: We can’t leave without mentioning Jurgen Klopp again.
SG: He has this stature. This Liverpool team are monsters and it’s come from him the moment he arrived.
For the players to have that level of respect for their manager in a modern dressing room is special.