To create your own Steve Gerrard transfer saga, simply cross out the sentences you feel don’t apply:
1. Captain Gerrard is staying at Liverpool, the love of his life.
2. He’s tired of all the Spaniards, so he’s going to join Michael Owen and David Beckham at Real Madrid.
3. He’s going to Chelsea for at least £32-million because they’ve got oodles of roubles.
4. He can’t leave Liverpool after winning the European Cup.
5. He’s leaving because he blames coach Rafa Benitez for the delay over a new contract.
6. He’s off because the club lacks ambition (though they are current European champions).
7. No, he’s really staying, even though he said on Wednesday ”leaving Liverpool has been the toughest decision of my life”.
Of course, it’s the last one that is actually true, at the time of writing, but don’t blame me if it changes.
God, it’s a mess, isn’t it? Last season he was off to Chelsea, deal done.
Then he decided to stay, scored the goal against Olympiakos that kept them in the Champions League and the first in their dramatic comeback win in the final over Milan. After that, he famously said: ”How can I leave after a night like that?”
Last Sunday, every paper in England, prompted possibly by his agency, SFC, recounted how he had had a row with coach Benitez in training on Saturday (just 24 hours after team-mate Jamie Carrager’s wedding, which all seems a bit curious) and by Monday he was off because the new contract hadn’t been offered to his impatient young agent, Struan Marshall, the previous Wednesday.
On Tuesday, while signing Bolo Zenden from Boro, Benitez said: ”I want Stevie to stay, I would like him to be my assistant, to take my job if I leave.”
An hour later, Gerrard issued a statement saying he had to leave, but said he refused to be dragged into a slanging match, adding all that garbage about ”the toughest decision of my life”.
Then, with all the papers trumpeting his departure just hitting the streets, came a newsflash on the BBC breakfast programme: Gerrard is staying.
Yup, the 24-year-old has become a Dr Doolittle character: you remember, the two-headed llama, neatly tagged ”push-me-pull-you”.
At one end, his agent Marshall and the giant SFC corporation, at the other the club.
Last year, after a few quiet chats with Chelsea’s Frank Lampard and John Terry while on England duty at Euro 2004 in Portugal, Gerrard decided to go to Chelsea. Then he decided not to, a little bit of déjàvu.
This year, Marshall, I guess, wanted his client to make the big-money move that would set both men up for life financially.
It isn’t going to happen. Gerrard, the last of the Anfield Scousers apart from Carragher, is going to stay. The rumours will begin now, as they did last year when he declined the move to Chelsea. Reports that his family received death threats were rubbished. Talk of his girlfriend’s refusal to move to London and the actual size of his pay cheque will last for months.
It doesn’t matter now. Liverpool have done what they had to — and turned down the £32-million offer from Chelsea that would have made good business sense.
But this is a football club, not a multinational corporation (take note, double-Glazed Manchester United). Club chief executive Rick Parry said: ”Stevie’s decided to stay. It’s a little bit like last year, only even more dramatic.”
With a £100 000-a-week contract waiting to be signed, there will be dissent in the dressing room too.
Curiously, Gerrard felt the need to defend his agent, saying: ”There seems to be a lot of blame heading in Struan’s direction over recent events. I can say from the bottom of my heart that he has carried out my wishes and I want to thank him for his support during this difficult period.”
But what worries me is this: What if the fans turn on Gerrard as they did after his own goal against Chelsea in the League Cup final last season?
There are those who feel the team played quite well during his injury-enforced absence last season. That he is too much the focal point.
Others say his agents and his transfer shenanigans have taken the gloss off the post-European Cup glory. Two years of speculation is enough for any fan.
Something tells me we’ll be back this way soon. Chelsea or Real Madrid will come calling again.