As Steven Gerrard approaches the last six months of his contract with Liverpool, speculation as to whether the 34-year-old will continue playing has also begun.
Gerrard has not ruled out playing for another club. He has been at Liverpool since the start of his career and is one of the few one club men in the world. Gary Neville is amongst them and the current Sky Sports pundit represented Manchester United throughout his professional career. He says that Gerrard still is young enough to carry on playing for the next few years. Several midfielders like Ryan Giggs have carried on playing into the 40s.
It remains to be seen if Liverpool will be interested in extending Gerrard’s contract or they may look to the future and sign a young player instead. The Liverpool captain has not been featuring in the starting line-up of late. This has led to rumours that he has had a fallout with manager Brendan Rodgers. More importantly, Gerrard was not in the starting line-up on the 16th anniversary of making his debut. Rodgers later said that he did not deliberately block Gerrard from featuring in the starting line-up on this special day and it was merely a case of forgetting the date on his part.
“This week Gerrard told Liverpool fans that he would speak to them when the time was right, which was a sensible stance.I can’t quite understand where the fire is coming from on this issue. The idea that a 34-year-old can decide his future before Christmas seems odd to me. My take on it would be that both parties should sit back and relax. There are no flames.At that age, often you’re in a vulnerable state in your own mind – as Gerrard will be,” said Neville, who retired in 2011 at the age of 36.