Gerrard: I had to be peacemaker with Suarez and Rodgers

Steven Gerrard says he had to ‘play peacemaker’ between Brendan Rodgers and Luis Suarez in 2013 when the Uruguayan wanted to leave for Arsenal.

Gerrard, speaking to BT Sport (reported by JOE.ie), said that the manager and player had fallen out, and he had to work to get them back on the same page.

The former Liverpool skipper does not blame his former manager for the breakdown in the relationship and instead says that Suarez’s advisers were to blame.

Brendan’s relationship with Luis had broken down. I don’t think it was Brendan’s fault. Luis wanted to move on, to play Champions’ League football and he had people in his ear and people around him forcing him to make moves that maybe he didn’t really want to do.

Gerrard says he got the two parties together and explained to Suarez that staying at Liverpool for another year would help him get a move to one of the world’s best clubs, whereas leaving for Arsenal would not take him to that level.

I think it was just a case of being in the middle and trying to heal that relationship with him and Brendan and get him training with the first team again and just chatting to Luis and saying to him, “is it Arsenal that you really want or do you want Real Madrid or Barca?”

Gerrard acknowledges that losing Suarez to Arsenal would have been a double blow for Liverpool. It would have instantly made the Reds weaker whilst simultaneously making their rivals stronger, and he did everything he could to prevent that from happening.

I knew, deep down that him and his family wanted Barcelona rather than Arsenal. For me and all the Liverpool supporters and Liverpool people it made no sense at all, him going to Arsenal because it would have made them an awful lot stronger. When you lose someone like Luis Suarez it makes you an awful lot weaker, so for me, I was prepared to do anything it took to try and make that not happen.