Steven Gerrard Talks England Future, and Other Wednesday Notes

By: Noel | November 9th, 2011

Enough with the doom and gloom, it’s time for the news and notes. See what I did there? Yeah, I know, sorry. Plus one of the items we’ve got for today involves “Steven Gerrard,” “injuries,” and “English national team.” Which doesn’t bode well for moving on from said doom and gloom, but what the hell…

* With Liverpool’s captain sitting out England’s ~~poppy fest~~friendly against Spain at Wembley on Saturday with another injury setback, instead of wondering if Fabio Capello will ever figure out how to use Gerrard effectively discussion has turned to the player’s future with the national side. For most Liverpool fans, international football is a largely unwanted distraction, a chance for fragile players to pick up injuries and overworked ones to find their reserves drained even further, but it can’t be ignored that for most players there is a great deal of pride in being asked to participate in international competition. And it just so happens that Steven Gerrard is one of those most players:

It would be nice, if this is to be my last tournament, to get to a semi-final or a final rather than come away disappointed like we have been previously. Going into any tournament as a player, you always take it as your last because you never know what could happen two years down the line. But I’m 31, I’ll be 32 by the time Euro 2012 comes around, so, whatever happens, I’ll be treating it as my last one.

I am disappointed to be out for the friendlies, but I will be watching the games and supporting the team. I’m still fighting to get fit again but I’m not far away from hopefully being involved in the England set-up again.

So, something to look forward to next international break. Assuming he hasn’t picked up a life threatening pinkie infection that keeps him out of it. Still, even if Gerrard’s determination to participate in next summer’s Euros as well as any England games he can get himself fit for before then seems destined to lead to more than a few nervy moments from a Liverpool point of view, that he’s floating the idea of retiring from international duty after the summer will be a hopeful sign for anybody wanting to see him squeeze out a few more effective years at club level.

* Going from veterans to youth, Liverpool continues to snap up prospects from far and wide, with the latest official signing American U18 captain Marc Pelosi. There was news in the summer that he had reached a pre-agreement with the club and would be in Liverpool on trial soon afterwards, but the paperwork has only just been fully sorted. He’s arrived now, though, and had his first action with the academy’s U18 side on the weekend, leaving coach Mike Marsh impressed:

Marc is a good lad who has conducted himself really well since he’s been here,. He had trained with us a couple of times but last Saturday was the first time he could play as his papers had just come through. He played 45 minutes for us at Crewe and did really well.

Marc will be between the two groups—the under-18s and the reserves—so we will have to wait and see what happens. But he’s clearly got talent and is a left-footed centre midfielder who can also play anywhere on the left side.

In other news, Marc Pelosi has yet to score at the U18 level for Liverpool. So it’s probably safe to call him a failure or something.

* If things have seemed far too serious and depressing around these parts of late, the cure might be to head over to The Anfield Wrap, where Roy Henderson has turned the recent dearth of optimism into a chance to talk about trust. At times this season it’s certainly seemed something that everyone involved with the club, from the players on through the supporters, has lacked. And by comparison, it’s something that Liverpool’s opponents on the weekend had in excess.

It’s easy to trust Xavi or Iniesta to control a ball when you ping it at them at speed, or to flick it into the stride of a runner in space, but it’s far less easy to trust Carles Puyol, Javier Mascherano or Victor Valdes. But they do—just watch them. Even the less able players are trusted and expected to play their game, and more often than not, they rise to that challenge and meet the expectation. That’s something intangible that compounds itself over time within a club. And it’s arguably what Swansea are enjoying right now to a far lesser extent.

Of course, they’re blessed with far less quality in their squad than most clubs, but the players they’ve assembled are all trusted and expected to do the simple things well, and to keep a disciplined shape that maintains the right kind of foundation. We saw a side on Saturday that played one-twos, that remained calm when under pressure, because they knew they could expect an open man who’d happily demand the ball from them. That pervaded their entire side. And it’s not down to world class ability; it’s down to trust. Commitment and trust.

It may never be wrong to ask questions, and it may be unavoidable that fans will worry when things aren’t going well, but it might not be entirely out of line to suggest that as much as anything else what the club could use at the moment is a little bit of trust that things will work out in the end even if the road has been littered with unexpected obstacles and unforeseen difficulties.

We’ll be back with any breaking news as the day moves along, but in the meantime, while you go digging for shoots of hope outside the last chance saloon…

Some Related Liverpool Posts:

Category: International Duty, Miscellaneous, Premier League, Team News

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Waiting for Sterling

I trust in Carroll. Give the "35 million Euro Man" a while. Torres looked to be the best striker in the league, but after the 50 million switch he looks that he can be replaced by an eighty-year-old man with glasses and the ability to swing his leg.
Had Carroll scored everyone would of been raving about him having the best overall performance of his Liverpool career (man city game out, sorry I just think he got some goals out of a little luck and good team work.) This is the first game, thanks to @941e16b22e7488d2e4869a3ff3ca365c:disqus that I saw Carroll actually do well in Carroll kick ball.
Purify_the_body

Ok, trying again with the video sharing.

Carroll vs Swansea:http://videa.hu/videok/allatok... had to lower the quality, but hopefully it will at least stay up for a bit. If it works for you, let me know what other type of vids would be interesting from the game.
Purify_the_body

Seems I don't understand Disqus formatting.

http://bit.ly/uMkoBl
Purify_the_body

http://videa.hu/videok/allatok...
Ryan

You're really having a hard time, aren't you there guy? (edited cause I dumb)
Purify_the_body

Now that I know at least one person was able to see the video, my happiness is assured.

lol
redtrev73

Nice one man. Appreciate it. Kinda backs up the feeling I've had about Andy over the last while. He's doing his bit, winning the knock-downs and making the runs but not really receiving the level of support that he needs. Add into the mix that he is just a kid with a confidence issue and you can see why he's suffering.
Noel

Really good stuff—I'll have to dig out my embedding cheat sheet so that we can make sure everybody gets to see it in a post.
Ryan

Wait, did you edit the video yourself? If so, you officially kick ass.
JPR

The video was excellent. Interesting that Carroll's knockdown headers in the box had 3 or 4 Swansea players in the vicinity but no Liverpool players breaking into space for the layoff.
Tom Foolery

I built trust between my peers by long nights of heavy drinking. In this manner, you drink yourself into terrible situations and have to trust those in your group to help pull the team through safely. You're all in it together and through that dependence you learn to love and turst each other in ways you never thought possible. Especially since you don't exactly remember what happened, but something did, and now that common bond of dependence is instinctual.

Perhaps the players left out of thier respective national sides should organize a few pub-crawls (I'm looking at you Bobandy).
redtrev73

That is beautiful man...apart from the bit where you drunkenly learn to love each other "in ways you never thought possible"...there's a LOT of room for misunderstanding and hungover lawsuits right there...
Purify_the_body

Unfortunately the only comparison right now between us and Barca is playing people out of position. They were punished for playing Mascherano at CB this weekend and drew...sounds like they have been copying us, actually!
Ryan

While Barca have been known to throw players around for fun, A quick highlight real of Barca vs. Arsenal at Camp Nou and the Champions League Final will show just how much of a rabid animal he is at the back. I wouldn't be scared playing Lucas at CB if Skrtel fell out of form and Agger was injured, and Coates was...being a Coates.
redrk

They played players out of position because they were forced to do so due to injuries and they didnt have any options where as we are playing players out of position because.....................................actually i cant think of a reason why we are playing players out of position.
Ravenilli

From what I can see so far this season is players under pressure. The end of last season there was no expectation on the team to make it into Europe therefore no pressure and they played some of the best football I have seen Liverpool play for many many years. Then when they had a chance to get into Europe adding pressure they fall short of the line against Spurs and West Brom. That being said seems to be that there most be something in the water at Anfield which the opposition keepers are drinking as they seem to always play a stormer there for example Manure keeper had his best game in a Manure shirt, Norwich keeper played and stormer and then even though we did have one of the worst displays in recent memory against Swansea their keeper made some unbelievable saves in the last 5 minutes of the match.

Plenty of reasons to be optimistic though as it's only a couple of games into the season and Liverpool seem to always have a better second half to the season and if they don't fall too far back from the top pack between now and December I can see us being back in with Europe's elite where Liverpool belong come the end of the season.
Red2death

Trust or confidence?

I trusted Carroll to hit an open goal from six yards, and I'm sure so did all his teammates. Though on the other hand, Lucas and Agger can't trust that Adam will provide enough defensive cover when don't have the ball (and with good reason). So... what do we do now? =)
KC

It's kind of an annoying two way street. By trusting in someone you're building up confidence in them but they have to have some confidence in the first place for you to trust them. Why must everything be so complicated T_______T I miss the days when I was young and watching the World Cup and just watching the game to see the ball go in.
redrk

I miss the days when we trusted Torres to score goals,Torres trusted Gerrard to send him through on goal,Gerrard trusted Alonso to provide quality service and Mascherano to do the dirty work and Reina trusted rock solid defense to do their job and it used to work so well.....