Capello Must Decide Whether to Build Team Around Gerrard

Refreshingly honest as Steven Gerrard often is, he should probably give Rafa Benítez a little more credit for finding a way for Liverpool and their captain to play as devastatingly as they have been doing this month.

"My relationship with Rafa has got stronger," Gerrard explained this week. "Maybe when I was younger I was a bit selfish, thinking of myself a bit too much when he was playing me out of position. I should have realized he was doing that for the team. But at the moment he's playing me in my favorite position. I'm captain, we're winning, things are good."

Perhaps there is still too much of the "Stevie Me" in that statement for some tastes, though it would be churlish to deny that Gerrard is currently in the form of his life and fully entitled to point to the success of his present role as deep-lying striker behind Fernando Torres.

What he cannot say is that he has always coveted that role. Until this season Gerrard's "favorite position", the one he not-so-secretly wanted to fill when being asked to play wide right for Liverpool or stay back for England, was advanced central midfield. He wanted to be in the thick of things but with a license to get forward whenever possible. The idea of Gerrard being a forward, full stop, appears to have come from Benítez. It appears to have been a recent one as well, otherwise there would have been no need to go to all that expense and trouble over Robbie Keane.

Benítez wants Torres, when fit, to operate as a solo striker with support from the wings from players such as Dirk Kuyt, Albert Riera or Yossi Benayoun. defenses are organized to cope with that sort of threat though, so he also wants a player to operate between the lines, a direct attacking presence that defenders and midfielders are never quite sure whose responsibility it is to pick up. Keane might have made that role his own, though in the event he suffered from having to play at the point of the attack when Torres was injured.

Now Torres has returned, Gerrard has not only claimed the role but shone in it. He can play ahead of Torres or behind him. He can play his fellow striker in, or be played in himself. He has great positional awareness, a physical presence and an exceptional turn of speed, and with other players locking the base of midfield has no need to chase all over the pitch as of old, trying to do everything himself.

Gerrard might have finally found his perfect position, and the question is, what is Fabio Capello going to do about it? Will it be back to midfield duties with Frank Lampard on Saturday, or are England going to try and harness some of the current Liverpool feel good factor? Perhaps Emile Heskey deserves a loyalty vote against Slovakia, for while his form for Aston Villa has not been outstanding, his performances for England at the end of last year were among the best of any of Capello's squad. Neither should Wayne Rooney be dropped on a whim, even if he is capable of starting a fight with a corner flag. But Gerrard himself is wondering what he might do up front in tandem with Rooney - "I'd love nothing better than the chance to play in that role for England" - and what are friendlies for if not to try out new ideas? It will be a disappointment, given that Gerrard is now being talked up as the world's best by a previous holder of that title in Zinedine Zidane, if England do not try to play at least part of the game with him in his most effective position.

There is no guarantee that it would succeed. Rooney is not quite as quick or as mobile as Torres and when England have tried similar schemes in the past he has ended up unhappy up front on his own, playing with his back to goal and too easily isolated to be effective. But then again the Gerrard-Lampard midfield axis does not come with any guarantee of success either, and though both players ought to be good enough to impose themselves from almost anywhere on the pitch, that has not always been England's experience. The one thing one hopes Capello avoids is the half-way house solution, whereby he asks Gerrard to play a bit on the left but mostly upfront, and the player gets caught between defensive and attacking duties so that Harry Redknapp ends up suggesting England are killing him.

What has launched Gerrard so spectacularly at Liverpool this season is the solidity of Riera on the left and Kuyt on the right. Before that, Gerrard had to help out in those areas, and as a result his impact through the middle was weakened. England have the personnel, they should give it a try sometime soon. Though as Capello undoubtedly realizes and Benitez has elegantly proved, the switch is more than a mere positional tweak. It is not just a question of sending one man further forward into the hole, it is about the whole team making the hole work. Liverpool, quite literally, have built their team around Gerrard. Capello must decide whether or not to do the same.