Benitez banks on Gerrard By Tim Rich
(Filed: 27/04/2005)
There are many ways of measuring the gulf between Chelsea and Liverpool. There are the 31 points that separate the two clubs in the Premiership, the number of victories Liverpool have celebrated at Stamford Bridge in the last 16 years - one - and, most cruelly of all, the number of Rafael Benitez's players who would interest Jose Mourinho.
With the possible exception of Xabi Alonso, the answer is again one. When Steven Gerrard last played Chelsea, the enduring image of Liverpool's captain was of him slumped on the ground after the final whistle contemplating the own goal that propelled Mourinho towards his first trophy as Chelsea's manager. During the tortuous journey from Cardiff to Merseyside, radio phone-ins were alive with comments questioning Gerrard's commitment, usually ending with the barbed retort that he had scored his first goal for the club prepared to pay some £30 million for him come the summer.
Gerrard's future is as clouded now as it was in February. While some claim his move to Stamford Bridge is a "done deal", there have been reports that his efforts to buy a house in London have been shelved. According to Benitez, tonight, two games from a European Cup final, there should be no doubting Gerrard's commitment to the club he fell in love with as a boy. "If you look into his eyes, you can see the determination," the Liverpool manager said yesterday. "Talking to Stevie and watching him training, it is clear he really wants to do well. I don't think his future will be decided by the result of this tie. Steve is our player and he wants to win."
When pencilling in his blueprint for the season, Benitez would have wanted Gerrard and Alonso alongside each other and it is worth pointing out that though Chelsea have won all three of their games against Liverpool this season, they have faced Alonso and Gerrard together for only half an hour at Anfield.
Those 30 minutes on New Year's Day were instructive; Liverpool dominated them and might have scored before Frank Lampard's unintentionally strong tackle put the Basque out of action for three months. "Analyse things and we have real possibilities," Benitez said. Those three defeats, he pointed out, were by a single goal. "In a one-off we've shown there is not much between us."
With Alonso, Djibril Cisse and now Harry Kewell back in the Liverpool squad, Benitez appears to possess more options than he did before the first leg of the quarter-final against Juventus, though Milan Baros is struggling to shake off a knee injury. The trouble is that none, especially Kewell and Cisse, is match fit and while the Australian has been taken with the squad to London, the most he could play is half an hour, though Benitez added with a smile that that was time enough to score the winner.
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