Would you sell Steven Gerrard?

As always happens in the silly season, articles have circulated linking Gerrard with £40m moves to Inter Milan, Man City, Chelsea, etc. It's all tabloid bullshit, of course, but it has sparked some interesting debate on 'The Tomkins Times' website as to whether or not the club should consider selling Gerrard. While some people clearly recoil in horror at the suggestion, I always think such things are worth thinking through before being dismissed out of hand.

If I am honest, I have to confess, the prospect of selling the skipper has crossed my mind this season amidst my own dissatisfaction with his performances.

Although there have been many factors in our inferior start to this season compared with last, I am certain that had we had the Steven Gerrard of August to December 2008 instead of the Steven Gerrard of August to December 2009, we would be higher up the table. For many reasons, Gerrard has rarely looked world class this campaign. Paul Tomkins made an astute comment that over the years Gerrard has had the “ability to drag us down as well as pull us up by our bootstraps” and I definitely think there has been evidence of that this campaign.

Gerrard had an excellent last season, as should be expected from a player in his peak years, but as he approaches his 30th birthday, it’s reasonable to question whether last season might be as good as it gets.

Seeing as Tomkins has regularly plugged Kuper & Szymanski’s “Soccernomics...” book, I read it and I noted that advises clubs should buy young players (early 20s) and “sell any player when another club offers more than he is worth”.

There are plenty of examples in recent history of clubs who have got it right and wrong when deciding whether or not to sell their stars as they reach and surpass their peak years. Wenger undoubtedly got it right when selling the likes of Vieira and Henry and others such as Overmars, Petit, Ljungberg and Pires. Fergie meanwhile timed the sales of players like Beckham and Van Nistelrooy to perfection but arguably messed up by not selling the likes of Roy Keane and Gary Neville while they could still command a fee. However, Fergie probably did the right thing in keeping Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes beyond their peak years just as Wenger benefited from retaining the likes of Adams, Keown, Dixon and Winterburn, not to mention Bergkamp beyond the expiry of their transfer values. Meanwhile Chelsea are the best example of what not to do after they signed Andriy Shevchenko for £30m months before his 30th birthday only to see him flop miserably and leave for nothing.

If we were offered £40m for a player who will turn 30 in the summer, from a purely business perspective it would be madness not to consider selling given that his transfer value will rapidly depreciate from here on.

However, that assumes that Gerrard’s sole value is that of his transfer value. In reality his value is more than that. He is an icon for the club and his presence attracts fans and sells shirts from Liverpool to Bangkok. Irrespective of whether or not we finish in the top four, Gerrard’s presence at the club will help attract other good players. Conversely, his sale would deter potential signings from joining us as we would be viewed as a selling club and one in decline. The media, opposition fans, and our own supporters would react negatively assuming the sale was sanctioned solely because of the owners debts and viewing it as evidence we are not a big enough club to retain the world’s elite players rather than seeing any of the practical benefits.

There is a practical argument that Liverpool would fare better with a more balanced squad in terms of quality rather than having a good first XI, OK squad and two absolutely world class outfield players (You can debate the merits of Johnson, Agger, Mascherano, etc as much as you like but Gerrard and Torres are in a different league entirely). Rafa has recently taken quite a bit of flak for investing so much of his summer transfer budget on Johnson and Aquilani rather than buying 3-4 players in the price bracket of Dossena and Riera (note the subtle point I am making here with the carefully selected names!). It’s harder to make successful signings in this price bracket than in the £20+ price bracket that other clubs are able to operate in but given our lack of means, there is a logical argument that rather than investing £23m on another Torres, the manager should split the cash and buy a Kuyt and a Bellamy. Maybe one of the two signings will come good and crucially one can provide back up for the other (e.g. if the Kuyt was off form or injured, the Bellamy could play whereas if Torres is off form or injured we’re stuffed). It is possible (although unlikely given the media agenda against him) that it might ease the pressure on the manager if he did not make more marquee signings as, in theory, less should be expected from less expensive signings.

Ultimately, I would argue that if our two Champions League Finals versus AC Milan proved anything, it was that truly world class players can defy the odds and drag a team to victory (see Gerrard and Carragher in Istanbul) whereas a collection of astutely but relatively cheaply assembled players don’t have that moment of magic in them on the biggest occasions (Athens). Had we had Torres in our team in Athens, we probably would have won. Instead we had Kuyt up front and lost. I’m not knocking Kuyt but there is a world of difference between him and Torres as a lone striker.

Still, if we took £40m for Gerrard, there would be nothing to stop us buying another player for £30-40m IF the owners allowed Rafa to spend the money. And there’s the rub because if Rafa wasn’t able to spend the money, there would be no point in even having the debate. Gerrard would have to be retained. Given the way the Yanks have operated thus far, no one in their right minds can trust that the money would be reinvested in the team and so on that point the debate dies.

However, to round off the debate – if I could be permitted to step into a fantasy land where we could believe that Rafa would be allowed to reinvest any money from Gerrard’s sale, there is still one issue to consider: loyalty.

When Gerrard flirted with Chelsea during the summers of 2004 and 2005, people were queuing up to label him a disloyal and treacherous so and so. If, having proven his loyalty to us, it were the case that Gerrard’s preference would be to stay at Liverpool for the remainder of his career, wouldn’t it be a tad hypocritical for us to call for him to be sold now that he is at the end of his peak years?

Ultimately, Gerrard may well have sacrificed a Premiership winners’ medal or two out of loyalty for us so shouldn’t we repay that loyalty in kind. Gerrard is a Liverpool legend. He has been a hero for a generation and one of the finest players I have ever been blessed to see. If he can end his career as a one-club man and if we can give him a send off like Sami’s (but bigger) then I, for one, would be proud that we placed loyalty to a great servant of our football club over money.

For that reason, I would not sell Steven Gerrard for any price.