Time comes for Steven Gerrard to find role in England's bigger picture - 7M sport

Time comes for Steven Gerrard to find role in England's bigger picture



I have a say

Posted Friday, September 03, 2010 by theguardian.com

The captain prefers to play further forward but has struggled to create an effective blend with Wayne Rooney.

Time comes for Steven Gerrard to find role in England's bigger picture
Steven Gerrard, right, could be deployed behind Wayne Rooney when England face Bulgaria at Wembley tomorrow.

Fabio Capello may be on trial in England's next three matches, but the fixtures against Bulgaria tomorrow , Switzerland on Tuesday and Montenegro next month are equally important for what they will tell us about Steven Gerrard, whose performance against Hungary three weeks ago forced second thoughts from those who may have been doubting the 30-year-old's continuing importance to the team.

Gerrard is England's captain, but only because John Terry disgraced himself and Rio Ferdinand is still on a long and uncertain path back from injury, almost two years since he last played three consecutive games for the national side. The Liverpool man would have been many people's first choice for the armband, but after trying out all the candidates Capello seemed to take the view that his occasional bouts of introspection made him the least convincing of the trio.

When the manager finally decided to give Terry the job in the summer of 2008, Gerrard was ousted from the vice-captaincy by Ferdinand. Circumstances forced the Italian's hand when, with Terry demoted, Ferdinand withdrew shortly before the World Cup finals. On and off the field, however, Gerrard's leadership in South Africa hardly created a strong case for his retention. Although he was probably shrewd to distance himself from Terry's attempt to rally the players in an apparent stand against the manager, he appeared to have nothing to offer in its place as England subsided to elimination.

On the eve of England's first post-World Cup fixture, he was forced to lead the ritual chorus of apologies for the disappointment of the South Africa campaign. His declaration was clearly an honest one, but the delivery felt uncomfortable. Given that he had just experienced the most dispiriting season of his 12 years as a first-team player at Anfield, he was probably just fed up with having to say sorry yet again.

But then came the moment of possible redemption. In the closing stages of the friendly against Hungary, the remarkably large and loyal Wembley crowd were given a glimpse of the Steven Gerrard who has been one of the Premier League's most influential players of the past decade. England had fallen behind when Capello took off a pallid Wayne Rooney and sent on James Milner in the 66th minute. Three minutes later Gerrard smashed a long-range drive past the visitors' goalkeeper, provoking unconfined joy among the children in the crowd who were getting their first taste of a Wembley international and had hoped for something memorable from one of the superstars. They had hardly been given time to draw breath when Gerrard turned between two defenders in the Hungarian penalty area and prodded home a shot to complete a cameo of technical virtuosity that gave England a morale-rescuing win.

The context of those two goals, however, raised a question of their own. They were scored after Gerrard had moved into a position behind the principal striker, a role he has always preferred.

Rooney had started the game alone in attack, with Theo Walcott and Adam Johnson on the flanks, Gerrard in the hole and Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry forming the midfield screen. Bobby Zamora replaced Lampard at half-time, joining Rooney up front while Gerrard dropped back to partner Barry (and Ashley Young replaced Walcott, allowing Johnson to move across to his more effective position on the right wing). But England were no more effective after the switch to 4-4-2 than they had been with a Rooney-led 4-2-3-1.

Rooney's departure, however, seemed to unlock something in Gerrard. As the new lone spearhead, Zamora took up straightforward positions and made simple runs that appeared to create more space for the captain to exploit. The two goals were the result.

Past form suggests that when asked to create a blend with Rooney's comparative sophisticated approach to front-running, Gerrard seems to find his way up too many blind alleys. Capello tried the Gerrard-Rooney combination in his first two matches in charge – friendlies against Switzerland at home, a 2-1 victory with goals from Jermaine Jenas and Shaun Wright-Phillips, and France away, a 1-0 defeat – and seemed not to like what he saw.

Since then he has tried various combinations of Rooney, Peter Crouch, Emile Heskey, Jermain Defoe, Dean Ashton, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Darren Bent and now Zamora, without finding a two-striker partnership that really works. In training this week he has been using Rooney alone up front, indicating that he feels the possibility of teaming him with Gerrard retains its potential, despite the most recent evidence in the third quarter against Hungary.

Given that they are two of England's genuinely top-class players, and that there is probably not a manager alive who would want to seize on Rooney's run of 10 international matches without a goal as a pretext for dropping him, that would be the happiest outcome. But there is also the question of Gerrard's role with Liverpool, where he began the season with anonymous performances alongside Lucas Leiva at the base of midfield but has since been moved up, in the absence of the suspended Joe Cole, to play off Fernando Torres.



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