Rio Ferdinand believes Liverpool showed a lack of loyalty to Steven Gerrard at the end of his playing career and should not have let him leave for America before returning as a youth coach.
Gerrard left Anfield in 2015 after playing over 700 games for the club as his place in the first team was no longer guaranteed and he finished his playing days in MLS with LA Galaxy.
It was not long until he was back at Liverpool, taking charge of the Under-18 side in 2017, but Ferdinand reckons the Reds owed it to Gerrard to keep him around until the end of his time as a player.
The Manchester United legend feels Liverpool should have offered Gerrard a new deal instead of letting him leave on a free transfer, especially as his former England teammate had turned down advances from Chelsea to stay at Anfield earlier in his career.
‘Let’s look at the Steven Gerrard case, he’s been loyal to them,’ Ferdinand said on his Vibe with FIVE podcast. ‘He had obscene offers probably from Chelsea, they courted him, they tried every which way they could through players, and what not trying to get him and unsettle him.
‘He became unsettled, flirted with the idea a little bit, but actually, loyalty probably made him stay at Liverpool. Whatever happened, he was courted by Chelsea. He decides to stay, and then he gets towards the end of his career and the club don’t want to give him a new deal.
‘Bearing in mind [he’s] arguably the club’s best-ever player, been apart of iconic moments at the football club and would have had so much to offer young players staying there from a culture, a mentality and somebody they can look at and identify as a local lad, but they let him go to LA Galaxy.
‘There was the ability for him to stay there as a player-coach and groom him into being a coach in the system that they’ve got or a manager, but they chose to do something totally different and allowed him to go to LA Galaxy.
‘So when you talk about loyalty maybe if the club were being shown an element of loyalty there they might have gone, you know what, because of that loyalty he’s showing us, we’re going to give him a bit back at the end of his career.’
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