Liverpool's captain fantastic Steven Gerrard says he wants to finish his career at the club.
The 28-year-old has two-and-a-half years to run on his contract but when that's up, he is hoping to sign another one, to keep him at his boyhood club for the rest of his playing days.
"I have two and a half years left on my contract and hopefully I will sign another one and stay for the remainder of my career," he told Liverpool's official website.
"I don't know what's going to happen over the next ten years but certainly for the next five or six I hope I'm playing in Liverpool's first team."
Next weekend sees the tenth anniversary of his Premier League debut, when he came on as a second-half substitute for Vegard Heggem against Blackburn Rovers.
And he has achieved more than your average footballer in that time; picking up two FA Cups, two League Cups and hoisting the UEFA Champions League trophy aloft as captain in 2005.
"It's hard to believe I have been in the first team for ten years because the time has just flown by," he said.
"I'm very proud to be able to say I have played for the first team for ten years.
"If someone had said ten years ago that I would go on to be captain and lift the European Cup then I wouldn't have believed them, but I've had to work very hard to get to where I am and to win trophies both on a personal level and as part of the team."
When the time does come to hang up his playing shirt for good, Gerrard is keen to keep wearing his boots in some capacity.
He added: "We'll have to wait and see about management but I certainly want to get my qualifications to enable me to coach and manage. Then I'll have to decide what I want to do.
"Whether I'll be interested in the Gary Ablett (Liverpool reserve coach) type role, the Sammy Lee (Liverpool assistant manager) role or the Rafa Benitez role, I don't know. I just want to get all my badges and then we'll see."
Gerrard's first concern though is to get back to full fitness having missed England's defeat of Germany midweek with a muscle tear.
He is sitting out Saturday's home match against Fulham and is currently only rated as 50-50 for next week's Champions League qualifier against Marseille.
0 comments:
Post a Comment