:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/46289000/GettyImages-471412562.0.jpg)
Liverpool are losing Steven Gerrard this summer. In a few short weeks, the club’s long-serving captain and one of England’s greatest ever midfielder’s will wrap his Liverpool career and head to Los Angeles to see out a final season or two in the sun before he retires. And if Liverpool are about to lose their midfield talisman, who better to replace him with than the Italian Steven Gerrard?
Rather amusingly, Liverpool have now been linked to none other than Andrea Pirlo, the soon to be 36-year-old Juventus midfielder and Serie A legend the English media tried to compare Gerrard to last season following his move to the base of midfield. If Liverpool still had Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge leading the line and could afford to measure their holding midfielder’s impact by his attacking contributions, it might make for a brilliant move.
As things stand, the simple truth is that Liverpool sadly lack the quality to prop up a player like Pirlo, who is unquestionably a great at what he does but even in his prime was a fairly limited player physically. Now, at Juventus, he relies on Paul Pogba and Arturo Vidal to do his running for him, and he has Carlos Tevez and Alvaro Moratta to play the ball forward to. At Liverpool, as least as they are today, he would sadly end up a liability.
Much the way Gerrard has disappointed this season, Pirlo at the base of Liverpool’s midfield seems a move that would be destined to hurt the Reds more than it helps. Add in the increased pressing Pirlo would see in England on a weekly basis, and it would also be doing no favours to the legacy of one of the game’s all-time greats. Gerrard’s legacy, at least in the short term, has been damaged this season. In a similar set-up, so too would be Pirlo’s.
Still, according to Tuttosport, Liverpool are actively chasing Pirlo and stand a "good chance" of convincing him to make the switch and test himself in the Premier League before he retires. While it seems a quite mad rumour, if it ever did come to pass one certainly couldn’t fault the club for trying to replace Gerrard in a like-for-like fashion: one ageing midfield legend for another, both capable of a sublime pass but also increasingly defensive liabilities.
