When Steven Gerrard looks back on his career, how much satisfaction will he take from it? A little? A lot? Yesterday he lamely and pathetically attempted to hijack the Legends event at Anfield by goading our fans every chance he got.
To what end except to feed his own ego? It did nothing for a half decent atmosphere.
He doubtless thinks the day was a triumph.
But that’s rather the point I’m making. Gerrard has always been at the centre of his own legend, and that’s why he judges himself more harshly and horribly than any other person could.
What does he see when he looks back on his career so far?
Was his behaviour yesterday that of someone confident and self assured, even arrogant? Or someone struggling with regrets and pondering the choices that he has made?
Who decides whether someone is rated as a success or a failure? Would football scholars?
Certainly he was a tremendously accomplished footballer, winning trophies and caps and with a Champions League winners medal in his cabinet. But Paul Lambert does as well, and so it’s all relative. Tuchel won one as Chelsea boss and still got sacked.
The two things Gerrard wanted most in the world was, first, to win the title as a Liverpool player and for the rest of his life people will remind him that he might have done so … except for his own mistake. His own mistake.
That’s a life-time of soul searching and pain and self doubt right there.
He will never get over it.
His second ambition, when he quit playing, was to have been at Anfield in some capacity when the 30 year run without a title finally came to an end.
And he missed out on that experience. He played no role in the winning of that championship, and he knows that as well. Where was he when that history was being made? Having his backside handed to him in Scotland by us.
That’s another regret that will never leave him.
Liverpool fans are entitled to wonder why their club only reached that peak when he was no longer there. Not just no longer on the park but no longer in the building at all.
But then, their questions about him go back much further than that and their doubts have more to coalesce around than just his being absent from the campaign where they finally reached the summit.
It’s a well known fact that he would have left Anfield well before he did and that the only reason he didn’t was because he didn’t want them to think less of him. Mark that and think on it a while.
A purely selfish motive. He wanted to remain a hero in their eyes and he knew that if he pursued the money and the glory in London that he would tarnish his image.
He did use that period to basically blackmail the club into upping his contract though, making it clear that Gerrard was the first love of his life and money the second. Liverpool, as a city, as a club … who knows where they actually ranked in his concerns?
If we say that a man is judged by the company he keeps then what to say there except that his choice of friends was particularly gruesome and should, on its own, have buried him.
Notorious gangsters flitted in and out of his orbit.
Did he gravitate towards them or they to him? What does it matter when the result is the same anyway; he was comfortable with them and they with him, ignoring the ghastly damage they did to the neighbourhoods thousands of his fans came from.
His decision to leave Liverpool when they were on the cusp of ending that 30 year wait would have been odd enough, and telling, without his choice of club leaving many Liverpool fans open-mouthed in horror and utter disbelief.
The monarchist imperialist establishment club, profoundly anti-Catholic. And what must his wife have thought after christening their daughter Lourdes? No wonder she chose to base herself down south, miles away from any of it.
One day he will have to explain that to his girl, and where do you even start?
“Oh it was just a job?”
The same excuse his gangster pals doubtless gave to their loved ones, lawyers and yes their victims.
One of the notorious fall-backs of scoundrels and scumbags everywhere.
But no-one enters Ibrox and stays for any length of time without leaving profoundly altered by the experience, and let’s face it, we’re talking here about a guy who made the Piltdown Man look like a Harvard don.
The ethos of Ibrox is designed for gullible, pliable susceptible fools and especially those who already have one toe on the dark side of the street.
He fell headfirst into it all, and he was tainted by it and he knows that he was and those around him know that he was as well, whether they will say it to his face or not. We saw how deeply ingrained in him it is yesterday.
We’ve played against ex-Ibrox players before in these games and gave them a bit of stick without them resorting to that sort of nonsense. In a friendly game. It wasn’t only attention seeking, dark narcissism sweeping aside his common sense … this is who he is now, after spending three seasons in that building swamped in its lunacy and hatred.
His record there is one trophy in nine attempts.
It was an important one.
But the Champions League is an important one too and I bet he would trade his medal for an EPL league winners one.
And he didn’t even get to properly enjoy his triumph as COVID snatched away from him the open top bus parade I’m sure their club would have demanded.
It was someone else – Van Bronckhorst – who did something really big in that job.
The No Fans Title would have vanished into nothingness had Ramsey not missed the penalty, and been seen for exactly what it was; something that was a product of exceptional circumstances and gross failures at Celtic Park.
So he has been doubly lucky in that regard … but successful?
It got him his move to England as a manager, another step, as some saw it, on the road back to Anfield as manager.
Well how did that story end?
With a move to Villa, where he lasted less than a year.
Who wants him in the dugout next?
There is no clamour for his services, in spite of the drip-drip of stories in the papers, most of them, like the PSG story, absolutely absurd and the kind of thing Ricky Gervais was spoofing in the famous Les Dennis episode of Extras where it’s the comedian himself who calls gossip columnists pretending to be other people, and feeding them stories designed to make him look good.
He dreams of a return to Anfield. This is known.
But right now he has a better chance of a gig on LiverpoolTV than he does of landing a job on the coaching staff, and anything other than the big seat is a step down anyway and it would crush him to face that.
So of course he struts around in front of the Celtic support, this man who has never realised the ambitions he had for himself and who must have sleepless nights wondering about the one league title he is responsible for, the one bookended by nine Celtic titles and two and counting … it would make even the most self assured guy wonder whether something other than his own skills were responsible for that. And what price that “success” anyway?
The Mooch is busily claiming that as his own, and our media is going along for the ride.
The title King told him would collapse us like a house of cards has come, has gone, and we’re stronger than ever … so how do you really judge his time at Ibrox? Successful?
The attack on Pearl Harbour was successful, taken in isolation, as a single military operation.
And what was it Yamamoto said about that? “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve …”
Oh you had better believe it mate.
What sparked his reaction yesterday?
The chants from our fans about him being an “orange bastard”, which is a term a lot of folk find distasteful and even worthy of sanctions.
Still, what was that to him but a reminder of how he betrayed his background, his family, his city and many supporters of the club he loves by hitching his star to the sectarian supremacists of Govan and in doing so, at the same time, took him away from Anfield at the precise momnet that club was on the brink of laying its ghosts – his ghosts – to rest?
In his shoes I’d hate us too.
But believe me, he hates himself more.
He goaded us yesterday to get a reaction but in doing so he already had the reaction from the one guy who can needle him more than anybody else; himself.
He is a tortured soul … and he deserves to be.
He’s mibbie no the brightest…….naw?
Wit a load of p*sh ! We gave him some , he gave some back.. was all part of the fun , grow up !
It was poor, to say our fans didnt goad him is ridiculous. To claim he is in the same category as Paul Lambert is laughable. I really like Paul he is a brilliant footballer, but he even would not claim to be in Gerard’s category. Lets keep it real as when we make silly claims in undermines the quality of any other kind or argument. We are all dissappointed he went to Ibrox and that he stopped us winning ten, but we need to recognise he did it against pretty much all the odds, before he came we were whooping them 5-0 almost every game. As Johnny says the singing of THAT song is a disgrace.
Most sensible thing I’ve seen you say, Gordon ?
Well that is most certainly a different slant on things but it doesn’t sway my opinion one little bit. The singing of THAT song is so very wrong, it’s not acceptable and it was sung before the penalty not as a result of it. That though was the signal for missiles to be thrown at Gerrard….in a Friendly FFS. Goaded or not, and I didn’t see any deliberate taunting unless celebrating a goal comes into that category now, the fans reaction was shameful and down right embarrassing.
Gerrard is a POUNDLAND version of John Barnes.
Far too many words wasted on a fool. First of all, Gerard is not and never ever was a catholic, so I don’t see how he betrayed anyone As far as I am aware, his wife isn’t a catholic either, she named her child Lourdes after Madonna’s daughter. He went to cardinal Heenan school only for football reasons.
However, if his goading was such as to encourage “missiles” to be thrown then I would suggest, no matter for which cause, that Celtic no longer go near their place unless drawn there in competition. The fact is that these people, no matter how we kid ourselves on, have no affinity with Celtic. Like most of the English football fans, they are more inclined towards Old Firm Sevco.
He was a Catholic. There was a photo going around on WhatsApp when he joined the vermin. That photo was of “Slippy” when he made his first communion. He was standing there with his rosary clasped between praying hands. I sent it to all my “hun” pals. Don’t have it anymore. Shame.
Can’t and wouldn’t deny that slippy was a fabulous player in his own right.
Yet saying that his career is still overshadowed by more failures than successes but only a fact that the British media attempt to hide.
Even his managerial career to date trys to hide that fact also.
Is 1 trophy in Scotland which was handed to him, a better achievement than losing back to back trebles, and even St Johnston were able to win more trophies than slippy?
Even in Ireland, the man u supporters will defend Roy Keane for walking out on Ireland, the same way the Liverpool supporters will defend slippy for joining the scum.
Will create great banter but underneath it all there still remains a level of disgust by both of there actions and decisions taken which were both morally wrong imo, by turning there backs upon many who had given them so much support.
Will call into the character of these individuals, and yet Roy Keane could be forgiven for trying to make amends towards Ireland, can’t ever seeing slippy doing likewise as stuck to far up his own arse still.
Yesterday was a fabulous occasion for such worthy causes.
Yet slippy wanted to make it all about himself and turned it into him against the Celtic support as who was the biggest stars of the day.
Slippy did manage on a couple of occasions to produce the class he once had, yet the Celtic support showed the class we have always had throughout the occasion so a non contest really with the Celtic support winning so easily still.
Disappointed to see the few react in the manner that they did after the peno, as if you hand out the stick you have to be able to take it in return and throwing missiles certainly isn’t how any should react and letting our club down in such a way either.
Our supporters were the real winners yesterday and the handful of dopes need to take a good look at themselves as why are you going to slag off the Huns/DOBs and then want to behave like them?
I’m all for our club continuing as a progressive modernist entity in this league and in this country ideally. I accept that these IRA songs are not Celtic’s or their supporters’ history but there is a an association in the past, particularly the 70s and 80s to it. To a lesser extent the late 60s and 90s too. If you stood in the Jungle you’d know exactly that, what it was about and what went on.
A lot went on. It was easy, looking back, to be corrupted by and into it. It happened in relation to the paramilitary wings of unionism in the opposite side of the city too, still does, and in the British army many of whom were Scots, sorry Brits, and probably still does. To deny that the DUP is not the political voice of that very entity sitting and accepted willingly in a British parliament particularly by a Conservative Party, conserving their values would be to deny that this sinister undercurrent doesn’t remains still. Approved at a very high level in society. Sorry to say, it seems it’s a case of progress but slow, one step at a time progress. One day hopefully.
I agree though that should remain in the past in Paradise. There is absolutely no place for the IRA songs here today but to thread that with anti orange order chants particularly when we know what and who actually controls and runs the institutions of this country I struggle with. That’s a political thing though. I’d absolutely welcome the day when we’re a civilised society in Scotland but that day is not yet upon us. Sorry to say, thus it lives. HH
He’s not first minister here, today or anytime, not in Scotland. Irrelevant comment Sam
I agree that political songs should be for outwith football grounds, and anything else not associated with sport, but I find it funny how the IRA are terrorists and the Ukrainians are to be lauded despite fighting the same cause. NORAID was supporting terrorism with a few dollars in aid but it is OK to supply the Ukrainians, to which I agree, with the most efficient weaponry known to man.
It’s a funny old world right enough.
His own mistake yeah! That’s why we call him Slippy G. I watched the “Legends” match yesterday, and Liverpool couldn’t get the ball off Celtic in the 1st half. Two disallowed Celtic goals, and one disallowed Celtic penalty, well yeah, that’s just about par for the course for us. Gerrard couldn’t hold back with his antics yesterday, simply because he was “goaded” by the Celtic support. It was actually him that was doing the goading when he scored from the penalty spot. Yes, another penalty against Celtic. He just couldn’t handle the flak! He should take a leaf out of Chris Sutton,s book, and try and have a laugh at himself. But this is what happens when you,ve been involved with the “Orrible Uns”.
There is a lot of pent up anger with him and Jamie “Spitting Mad” Carragher.
As has already been pointed out many times, it always has to be about him. And if he doesn’t get what he wants he lashes out. A bit llike that time he beat up a DJ in some cheap bar because the DJ wouldn’t allow him a shot on the decks. And incident that, unfortunately for Slippy G, was caught on camera and broadcast to the World.
Intellectually, he is a child. A spoilt, nasty little child.
Celtic and Liverpool have always had an affinity and always will.. there is a large Irish following for both clubs. The thing is every time he was getting the ball he was getting called a sad orange bastard.. this is happening far to regularly at away matches for my liking. I think it’s about time something was done about this.. because it’s tarring our club with a real horrible name. That was meant to be a friendly match.
The only time you make a comment Sean is when someone has a go at one of your heroes, you are fooling no one.
See if nobody says anything nothing will get done.. they will just carry on regardless. Tell me Jonny how that’s going to help our fans have a good name all over the uk. James is a very good blogger, but he only writes stuff that paints us in a good light, he don’t go near anything that criticizes us. That match was a friendly and that was an embarrassment that. Nobody supports Celtic more than me, but I’m not going to be a yes man for nobody. The match was for legends and to go to a good cause.. calling somebody an orange bastard whatever you think of him was in bad taste. You’ve got a lot to learn Jonny, don’t worry I’ll educate you .
Can you tell me jonny how you can justify a friendly match for old legends were the money is going to a good cause, were someone is getting called an orange bastard every time he has the ball. Nobody supports Celtic more than me, but if some of our fans behave like that , then I certainly will comment on it. James is a very good blogger but he writes a lot through green spectacles, and dosnt want to comment on anything negative. I don’t know how any sane person can justify that.You have a lot to learn Jonny , don’t worry I don’t charge for educating people on this
@ S Thomas. Cannae justify that. It was ridiculous behaviour and how can we point the ‘sectarian’ finger at the ibrox institution, when we’ve bampots doin the exact same thing in our support. Lettin the club down big time wi this shit.
Amen to that Kevin. Our fans have a great reputation.. but over the last 5 to 10 years there has been some motions trying to make us look bad. A lot of the fans enjoyed themselves like they always do.. but the clowns who were probable snorting like Hoovers and drinking the buckfast let the decent fans down.
“morons” , “ probably”
Lol Johnnybag Green can’t conduct himself on here when commenting or posting,him and his twin brother voice of an arsehole.
Everything has to be so venomous from those klowns.
Whenever anyone like myself have called them out on other occasions they two nuggets start to abuse you and make out we are sevco supporter’s because we don’t agree with their use of language or words to describe people.
I have never called you a hun Scud because I don’t believe you are. However, I do wish that you were one of them, it would make life so much easier knowing that such a fool wasn’t a Tim.
You obviously did not read my earlier comment ya nugget,
Ps Gerrard ain’t no hero of mine.. 1 of my favourite players Harry Kane opened the scoring for that country you hate today. God Jonny you really do hold a lot of hate in your heart, don’t worry Jesus loves us all ha ha
It’s all rather silly is it not? Folk all yelling back and forth at each other.
Gerrard for me is no great footballer at all.and he is realy bad manager too.only in the who thing for the money.as soon as he heard ange was on his way to celtic gerrard had no choice but to run like hell.imagine current celtic team playing liverpool on saturday celtic would have been 50 goals up by half time.gerrard showed imaturity by tunning towards celtic support this match was all for good cause but horrible people infested by bigotory like gerrard is had to spoil the whole game.by his stupidity uneducated antics because his small brain tells him im a rangers man
Well, what else would you expect from a scoucer. I new given the chance he would do just that because that is his mentality. Remember were talking about a footballer who in his day was playing for Liverpool and some guy approached him in a fish & chip shop which Gerrard didn’t like so he beat this guy senseless and left him for death and this is a professional footballer. So taking the job at Ibrox was right up his street. Having said that he got out quick enough enough because he knew with Lennon gone the easy ride was over