WEST HAM boss Slaven Bilic believes Liverpool miss the leadership of their former captain and club icon Steven Gerrard.
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| Slaven Bilic claims that Liverpool miss Steven Gerrard after he left Anfield last summer |
Gerrard left Liverpool last summer after 17 years playing for his boyhood club and one of the former England captain’s greatest games in a Red shirt was the 2006 FA Cup final against West Ham.
He scored twice to rescue Liverpool from 2-1 and 3-2 down and they went on to lift the trophy - winning on penalties after extra time following a 3-3 draw.
“Steven [Gerrard] is almost unique in modern-day football — a one-club man in this country and an icon for Liverpool — one of the greatest players to play for that club, perhaps the greatest,” Bilic wrote in the Evening Standard.
“They are missing Gerrard’s leadership, though. He was Mr Liverpool, as John Terry is Mr Chelsea or Mark Noble is Mr West Ham.
“It is impossible to find a new Steven Gerrard. You can find a new player of great quality but that will not make him a new Gerrard. It is most important to have someone like him, Terry or Mark.
“A player such as this is the manager’s right-hand man on the pitch. When everything is going well you don’t need him so much but there are parts in every game where you need one of your players to lead, to not think about his own game so much as helping the team.”
The Hammers travel to Anfield tomorrow (5:30pm) in the fourth-round of the FA Cup - a draw which did not please the Croatian despite his team already completing a Premier League double over the Reds this season.
Bilic added: “We were on the team coach travelling to Bournemouth when I heard the fourth-round draw and I admit I was not happy because it was one of the toughest options for us.
“I know we have beaten them twice already but that is in the past and this is Liverpool we are talking about — at Anfield!”
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