Pure focus has come to define Steven Gerrard during Liverpool's pursuit of the Premier League title, but as the club captain lines up in the tunnel at Anfield on Sunday afternoon he could be forgiven for glancing across at the Chelsea players and taking a moment to wonder what might have been had he, nine years ago, gone ahead with a decision that temporarily rocked English football.
On Tuesday 5 July 2005, Gerrard handed in a transfer request at the club he joined at the age of eight and had six weeks earlier led to Champions League glory on an incredible night in Istanbul. Shock and anger swept across the red half of the city. Fans burned shirts bearing Gerrard's name, which, while something of a stunt performed for the watching TV cameras, reflected the intensity of emotions felt by Kopites on the verge of losing their captain andinspiration.
In his autobiography, Gerrard describes that day as the "most emotional" of his life, a period when he was drained of all energy and reduced to "eating paracetamol like Smarties". As fans protested outside Anfield, as well as the club's Melwood training complex, Gerrard was holed up at home, a nervous wreck watching his future play out on rolling news channels while his father, brother and wife were on hand to offer their support.
The drama had started 12 months earlier when Gerrard, a childhood Liverpool fan from Huyton who idolised John Barnes and dreamt of being Steve McMahon, gave serious consideration to leaving the club after they had finished 30 points behind the champions, Arsenal, and showed no obvious signs of being able to overturn that deficit. According to the midfielder, Liverpool were "stagnating" under Gérard Houllier while Chelsea had wealth, ambition and a new, proven leader in José Mourinho who "wanted me". As Gerrard admits, "temptation entered my life" as he contemplated letting head overrule heart in the pursuit of personal ambition.
Liverpool soon appointed a new foreign manager in Rafael Benítez and having spoken with the Spaniard, Gerrard decided to stay. His faith was rewarded a year later when Milan were beaten at the Ataturk Stadium. There and then, Gerrard's mind was made up. "How can I leave after a night like this?" he said having led Liverpool to a fifth European Cup.
Things then got messy, as the club showed little drive in offering Gerrard an extension to a contract that had two years to run and the player saw that as an indication of their desire to sell him. "The mother of all misunderstandings" is how Jamie Carragher describes what took place in the summer of 2005 in his autobiography.
There was blame on both sides, but through Gerrard's own recounting of the tale, he comes across poorly. On the one hand, he bemoans Liverpool's failure to engage in contract talks, while on the other he speaks of the annoyance he felt when the chief executive, Rick Parry, approached him "three times in nine weeks" during the 2004-05 season regarding a new deal because, at that stage, he was unsure of Liverpool's ability to win major honours, and, in particular, the title. When a fresh deal was presented to him at the end of a hugely successful campaign, he deemed it as "not good enough" for a player of his abilities. Put simply, Gerrard wanted everything on his terms regardless of the confusion and contradictions that caused.
By the end of June all negotiations over a new deal were off, and after Chelsea made a £32m bid for the 25-year-old at the start of the following month all hell broke loose. Liverpool rejected the offer and told Gerrard, via his agent, Struan Marshall, that a contract was still on the table if he wanted to sign. But fed up with weeks of standoff and aware Chelsea, now Premier League champions, were keen on him again, Gerrard put in a transfer request. Or, as he describes it, "a hand-grenade rolled into the Liverpool boardroom".
"I was working in an office in Huyton when a colleague walked in and said: 'Stevie's going to Chelsea'," says Gareth Roberts, editor of The Anfield Wrap magazine. "I didn't believe him. A few weeks earlier, we'd won the Champions League and Gerrard had been sat on a bus with the European Cup watching thousands of his own thank him for his achievement. Why would he hand in a transfer request?
"But it was true and I couldn't take it in. My first instinct was to blame Rick Parry, as like many Liverpool fans, I wasn't his biggest fan. But whatever the reason … Chelsea? The bastard son of modern football. Why would a Huyton lad, Liverpool Football Club to the heart, want to go there? Tongue in cheek, I tore down a Gerrard poster we had on the wall in the office."
Gerrard claims he never really wanted to swap Anfield for Stamford Bridge and the transfer request was a means of forcing Liverpool to show their love for him. If so, it was a risky, rather selfish tactic, and Gerrard blinked first, deciding he "couldn't jump over the edge of the cliff". At 11pm on 5 July, Gerrard called Marshall: "Tell Rick I want to stay."
The news, delivered by Parry the following morning, was gratefully received by Liverpool fans, with sighs of relief replacing burning shirts. In a matter of days, Gerrard signed a new contact worth £100,000 a week.
The nine years since have seen unrelenting dedication from Gerrard to Liverpool's cause, even during the dark days of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and now he is on the verge of achieving it all. The captain may look at those in blue on Sunday and wonder, but the desire of the born-and-bred red is no longer in doubt.
"The satisfaction of one title with Liverpool, no matter how long it took, would always eclipse three or four at Stamford Bridge," says Carragher. "Ultimately Stevie realised that."
This article from the day before the slip just popped up in my feed. If Chelsea win their next two then Slippy would have to lead the guard of honor at the Bridge next weekend. Imagine how miserable his life will be at that moment of time. He could have gone to Chelsea in 2005 and written himself as one of the PL greats.
