Steven Gerrard: My Liverpool Story (27 page)

KING KENNY RETURNS

In the games’ room at my house, I have the shirts of
some of the players I have been lucky enough to play against, and also alongside, hanging on the wall.

Zidane, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Ronaldo, Totti, Keane, Vieira and Henry are all there, together with Torres, Alonso, Reina and Carragher. Thinking about it now, Carra has done well to get himself into such esteemed company!

But there was one shirt I wanted to make the room complete: Kenny Dalglish’s. I knew Kenny before he came back as manager and so I tried my luck. He said he might have an old one in a box upstairs at his house somewhere and true enough he found it for me and signed the Number 7 shirt with a private message on it.

As much as I was disappointed that things didn’t work out for Roy Hodgson – because I think he is a top coach – at Liverpool Football Club, when results are not good, inevitably changes will happen no matter who is in charge. Things couldn’t carry on like they were. We were in the middle of the table and not certain of climbing it, which is ridiculous when you consider the quality of the players we still had.

Liverpool supporters have a powerful voice and when they speak, you have to listen. It was clear who they wanted to take over, they had been singing Kenny’s name as early into the season as October, and I knew Kenny walking through the door in January 2011 would give everyone a lift.

In an instant, the club was united again. Everyone was on the same page, no one was fighting and the club’s new owners made money available for transfers. Torres left, but Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll arrived as we broke the club’s record transfer fee twice in a matter of hours.

When Andy came he took time to settle and find his form. Playing for Newcastle is different to playing for Liverpool. The pressure is different and that is not me being disrespectful. I think he understands that now and in the second half of the season he was on fire and a handful for the opposition. He has the potential to be one of the best strikers around.

Suarez, on the other hand, made the transition into English football seamlessly. I love training and playing with him. He is a magician, a player who can conjure something out of nothing and I just hope that Liverpool can satisfy his ambitions and that he stays at the club for years to come. There are not many players like Luis in the world, someone who lights up the pitch as soon as he steps onto it and I just wish I’d played alongside more often up to now.

The delight I took at seeing Kenny back at Liverpool was tempered on a personal level by the fact that I didn’t feature for him as much as I would have liked. I was sent off in his first game, an FA Cup tie versus Manchester United, and then injuries took hold. Of the 16 months that Kenny spent back in charge, I probably missed 10 months of that time. That is a major regret, but there was nothing I could do because of both my injuries.

Before I broke down with a ruptured groin in the March, Kenny knows what I went through for him, the club and for my team-mates just to get out onto the pitch. I was like a pin cushion, taking injections in order to play.

At the time you don’t worry about the effects because you have a game against Manchester United in three days and you need to win. The fans want you out there.

There are two groups of players in football. There are those who will do anything to get out on the pitch and there are players who won’t. When you have an injection, you are basically trying to cover the problem up. I knew I wasn’t doing my body any good, and that my groin was becoming weaker. I knew the risks.

We were training at Melwood one Friday before a game at West Brom and I twisted. Bang. My groin ruptured. One sharp movement and it came completely off the bone. Agony, complete and utter agony. I was out for six months, my comeback delayed by an infection, but in the back of my mind I at least knew that the surgery had been a success. Liverpool had done medical tests that showed my groin was stronger than it had been for the best part of a decade.

My comeback lasted five games. There have been so many rumours about why I picked up a second infection, but the truth is it was a freak accident. I had gone up for a header with Daniel Agger in training and when he landed, he caught me on my ankle. It was the sort of graze caused by a stud mark that I have suffered a million times before, the sort of knock I wouldn’t even show anyone.

But overnight my ankle started swelling and growing like never before. Even then I travelled down to West Brom with the team and was going to have another injection to play, although I seriously wondered whether I would even be able to get my boot on because the joint had ballooned up so much.

Liverpool’s doctor, Zaf Iqbal, did a blood test and sent it away to a laboratory for tests. I was just sitting down for an evening meal at the team hotel when he said I needed to go back to Liverpool immediately. My first thought was that something had happened to my family, but then Zaf told me about the infection and said it needed to be treated straight away.

In those situations, you have to put your trust in the medical people and I am lucky in that I have total faith in Zaf and I also have one of the best physios around in Chris Morgan.

Two hours after sitting down for pasta, I was in the Spire Hospital in Liverpool having an operation to drain my ankle and clear up the infection. My career was saved on that operating table not only by the skill of the surgeon, Chris Walker, but also the speed of thought of Zaf and Chris Morgan.

“I was like a pin cushion, taking injections in order to play.”

Roy Imparts the Wisdom of Experience

I will always maintain that Roy Hodgson could have proved he was the right man for Liverpool. His reign was short-lived because he was appointed at the wrong time. Liverpool supporters are powerful and when they call for something it is hard to resist. Roy came in to replace Rafa in the summer of 2010, but I feared he was up against it from the start because the fans wanted their idol, Kenny Dalglish, to take over. When the team didn’t then hit the ground running, it was always going to be tough for Roy. I respect him and I like him and I think with the right players he could have been a success at Anfield. He was very good to me and Jamie Carragher. He loved Jamie as a player and I just wish, as a group, we could have got better results.

Leading From the Front

I’m often perceived to be the leader in the Liverpool team, but it simply isn’t like that. I am the captain and I do my share of organising and, hopefully, leading by example, but I am not on my own. Carra is a leader in his own right and I believe Pepe Reina is a future Liverpool skipper. Pepe’s a very strong character, which is a bit of a prerequisite for a goalkeeper because it can be a lonely position at times. But he is also unselfish, genuine and most of all he commands the respects of his team-mates.

Enjoying the Moment

It’s not just my reaction that shows how good it is to score against Manchester United, but my team-mates’ as well. We were losing 2–0 in this game at Old Trafford before getting it back to 2–2. My first goal came from a free-kick and had a little good fortune about it as it crept through a gap in United’s defensive wall. Unfortunately, my joy was short-lived. Dimitar Berbatov started that season on fire and his hat-trick against us that day was one of the reasons why.

A Liverpool Legend and a True Friend

England had played Bulgaria in a European Championship qualifier at Wembley the night before and we had another game with Switzerland looming, but nothing was going to stop me from playing in Jamie Carragher’s Testimonial match. I desperately wanted to show my appreciation to a team-mate and friend, whose achievement in playing for Liverpool for so long should not be overlooked. It is difficult to play for Liverpool’s first team week in, week out for the best part of 15 years as Carra has done. More so because he is a local lad, too. He is rightly considered to be a legend.

Conversing with King Kenny

As much as I was disappointed that Roy Hodgson’s tenure was over almost before it had begun, I knew for the sake of the club that a change was needed. Kenny was itching to get back and when he answered the owners’ call to return to the Liverpool dug-out for the first time in 20 years his impact was like flicking a switch. Straight away the club was unified. The supporters were behind their hero, the players benefited from his man-management and Liverpool felt like Liverpool again. What I like about Kenny is that he will defend the club to the day he dies. He loves Liverpool, it is his life. I’d be sitting at home some days and his weekly press conference would be on Sky Sports News and he’d say something like, ‘Yes, they’ve got good players but we’ve not got bad ones ourselves.’ He was only interested in Liverpool doing well, and the way we finished that season showed how he was successful in stripping away all the negativity that had been plaguing us before.

Bearing the Brunt of the Old Trafford Faithful