Steven Gerrard's long goodbye continues this week as an interview with Rio Ferdinand reveals some interesting tidbits about the lead up to his decision to leave Liverpool.
'Rio Meets Steven Gerrard' will be aired on BT Sports at 10 o'clock tonight and, from what we know so far, the former Liverpool captain will be opening up quite a bit ahead of his move to LA.
Among other things, such as the slip against Chelsea, Gerrard has gone into detail about the sequence of events that led to his eventual departure from the club. Up until now, Gerrard has hinted that he wasn't happy with the club's reticence to offer him a new contract. But now, he's gone into specifics and it seems Brendan Rodgers' decision to leave Gerrard on the bench against Real Madrid in November was the straw that broke the camel's back.
This was round about the time when I was doing a lot of thinking about what’s next for me because I’d had a couple of initial chats with Brendan saying to me, ‘I’m going to start managing your games and I have to look after you and I want you to be fresh and I don’t want you to be playing three games in a week because you may be tired’ and stuff like that.
But this situation was a bit unique because it was Real Madrid and I wanted to play. I sat on that bench devastated because I wanted to play, so it is one of those situations. It sort of pushed me into making a decision to move on and try something different.
Some may say that Rodgers made the correct decision. Gerrard was far from his best last year and perhaps it was time to move him on. However, there's still a lot of belief around Anfield that the 35 year old should still be at the club, this revelation is sure to do little to help Brendan Rodgers' standing among a large section of fans.
