Thing about gerard though is, If i am not mistaken when we came 2nd in the league he was absent for a lot of those games. Whilst not many people can conceive of a team without gerard, the team learned to adapt (under benitez certainly) to playing without gerard. And I think in a way his absence would ironically encourage other players to play like men rather than boys as a lot of them seem to have been doing under hodgson and to a lesser extent benitez. I would have gerard in the team no matter what though cause he can score goals save matches etc almost regularly even when he has a bad game.
But it's also true that he sulked most of last season, which certainly contributed to our lowly position; without his leadership we were a damp squib. I feel that he's one of the few players in the world who is capable of turning a game on its head, eg Napoli this season. Also in 08/09 he was our top scorer (16 - Anelka was top with only 19, which seems incredible), however if you look a bit deeper we scored 77 in the EPL (scum, arse, and chavs all had 68), but only 30 of those came from Torres and Gerrard. One would have to say that it was a team effort, so finishing as high as we did really shouldn't be surprising. Now we're back to being a one-trick pony (though sometimes it seems the pony has forgotten its trick), and we're back where we belong in mid-table desperate for his inspiration once more.
