Steven Gerrard must not lose focus after incident Commentary: Tony Cascarino For Steven Gerrard now it’s about staying positive and focused and I don’t think that will be a problem. Getting back on the pitch will be a relief, a welcome escape from the headlines and the stress of his arrest. He’s not the kind of man who’ll be feeling sorry for himself. He won’t be knocked off course in a year when Liverpool at last have a realistic chance of winning the Barclays Premier League title. The incident shouldn’t deflect from what a fine season Gerrard is having. The media are underrating him. He is not just a very good player; he is a great one. Frank Lampard, Gareth Barry and Michael Carrick are the other great English midfield players, but Gerrard is superior to them all. This season’s Premier League player of the year award is a one-horse race. Nobody comes close to Gerrard. He is a street footballer, like Wayne Rooney: tough, aggressive and hard to intimidate. As he has matured his leadership has improved. He’s now more vocal and more comfortable with responsibility. Gerrard is unplayable at times. Opposition managers cannot stick an athletic player on him to track his runs and mark him out of the game because he’s an athlete himself, with great stamina and a good turn of foot over distance. His long-range shooting is highly accurate and powerful and he is self-assured when entering the penalty area. We don’t see him dribble round opponents because he has no need to use trickery to compensate for any lack of pace. He knocks the ball past defenders and bursts through, direct and dynamic. He’s a quick thinker, too. Look at some of the best midfield players of the past two decades and Gerrard’s game is a blend of their best qualities: the drive of Roy Keane, the box-to-box strength of Bryan Robson, the creativity of Paul Gascoigne, the goalscoring of Frank Lampard. Today, Gerrard is the best midfield player in the world. Last season Cristiano Ronaldo deserved that accolade but his form has declined. Kaká and Lionel Messi are phenomenal but they are not as versatile. You couldn’t ask them to play four different positions and still be world-beaters. Put Gerrard even at right back and he would be the best full back in the country. That adaptability has probably harmed him because managers can’t ignore it. Maybe it would do him a favour to have a stinker the next time he plays out wide so that Rafael Benítez will resolve to use him only in the middle. He won’t get 15-odd goals as a right winger, so I’d like to see him used solely in central midfield or just behind the centre forward, as against Newcastle United at the weekend, when he was devastating. Will Benítez ever get the best out of him? The Liverpool manager has messed him about, shunting him from position to position. Other managers would build the team around their star. Michel Platini, Zinédine Zidane, Johan Cruyff, Maradona — their sides’ tactics were centred on them. We certainly haven’t seen Gerrard at his best for England and that is what Fabio Capello must achieve as he considers how to turn the national team into a unit capable of progressing beyond the quarter-finals of a major tournament. It is essential that the Italian keeps faith with Gerrard because he is a match-winner, the player who can make the key difference in the biggest games. For me, his ambition and energy won Liverpool the Champions League in 2005, as well as his ability to score wonder goals, such as the crucial strike against Olympiacos. There is no reason why he cannot inspire England to the World Cup final. At 28 he is at the perfect age to be instrumental for club and country for the next four years. It would be sad if he hung up his boots with a lesser CV than inferior players who played for more successful clubs, such as Darren Fletcher or John O’Shea. Gerrard is too good to end his career without a bundle of honours. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle5425876.ece "Steven explained to me what had happened and I told him he has my full support and backing, along with everyone else at the football club. He's trained with the other lads this morning after a couple of days off for the squad and is keen now to focus solely on his football. "We've worked very hard to get into the position we're in going through to the new year and all of us are determined to keep that progress going. We'll do whatever we can to support Steven in the weeks ahead, but we're now concentrating on our preparation for the FA Cup game at Preston this weekend." http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/footbal...ez-1219940.html
