“It still pains me” – Steven Gerrard says infamous Chelsea slip had an influence on him quitting Liverpool | OneFootball

There are certain moments in players careers that they will never forget, and the significance of such moments will often be so pinnacle and lead them to a crossroads in their careers.

It seems that was the case for former Liverpool and England midfielder Steven Gerrard, and it happened in Chelsea’s favour.

Chelsea set to turn to defensive free agents this summer with Matthias Ginter and James Tarkowski on the long list.

Blues fans still sing about it now, the moment Gerrard slipped and gifted Demba Ba a goal to end Liverpool’s title hopes for that season, right after Gerrard was heard leading a team talk saying ‘we don’t let it slip now.’

For Chelsea fans it was comedy gold, but for Gerrard it had a really detrimental effect on him mentally and he still suffers from it now.

He was speaking about it to Gary Neville on The Overlap, as cited by The Daily Mirror, and you can tell from his words just how much that moment still effects him, and it also had an influence on him deciding to leave Liverpool that summer.

“It still pains me and as you say it is a bruise,” Gerrard said. “It was a learning experience, it is something that I always will take responsibility for. That’s the moment I look back on and think ‘If only I’d got that right, it would be so much better.

“It definitely flashes back, I think the reason why I always say that moment (as his lowest point) is because I don’t want people to think I’m ignoring it. Unfortunately it happened to me at a real cruel time from a personal point of view.

“It definitely had an effect on me mentally for some time – I don’t know whether it was months or years – still to this day it doesn’t feel great. Time wise maybe that affect my decision to go to America. I think being in Liverpool, when you’re in that routine, sometimes you’ve got to break free.

“I still wanted to enjoy my football, I still felt I had a few years left. I felt like the best thing for me, my family and the ending was to just go and reset. It wasn’t off the back of that but probably where I was at, I’d say it had an influence.”