Friday 12th May 2006
ANFIELD ONLINE LFC NEWS

GERRARD AHEAD OF FA CUP FINAL: MY BEST EVER SEASON

Gerrard reflects on his best ever season...

Confident Steven Gerrard will lead Liverpool into the FA Cup final insisting this has been the best season of his career.

And after a gruelling campaign - the longest in the club's history - the ominous message to West Ham if not for England from the Anfield skipper is that there is more to come.

Gerrard has the total respect of his fellow professionals who voted him PFA Player of the Year, and almost a year after he led Liverpool to Champions League glory, the midfield inspiration has his eighth winners' medal firmly in sight.

And Gerrard dismisses almost with contempt the theory that he has faced burn-out this season.

Even though the Millennium Stadium final will be his 59th for club and country this term, 62nd if you include the three pre-season friendlies which saw his campaign start at Wrexham on July 9, when he paraded the European Cup for a packed Racecourse ground.

Gerrard, 26 at the end of the month, just cannot get enough of the action, saying: "I feel as fit and ready as I did right at the beginning of the season.

"I feel there's plenty more to come and then I can't wait for the World Cup.

"But I wouldn't be doing my job if that was on my mind going into a final. I just want to win it in my first FA Cup final as skipper.

"Maybe I am surprised that I am going so well after 60-odd games, people were concerned at the beginning of the season about how many games I would be playing."

But after a 44-week domestic season, he added: "I always knew that if I got my body right, and everyone knows how many injuries I have had in my career, I would be fine.

"It has surprised me a little, but I have been looking after myself on and off the pitch and I can't wait for the final.

"If we get a good result there it will put me in the right frame of mind for the World Cup.

"I am happy with my fitness and form and have tried to be as consistent as I can be, I try to give everything in every game."

Gerrard may well have been a European champion last term and figured in the 2001 treble campaign, but he said: "I feel this has been my best season, I have been so happy with my form.

"We have done well in the league and a Cup winners medal will top off a good season.

"It will be a special moment. I always dreamed of playing in cup finals but I will be captain this time, and that makes it very special to me.

"I have won the Cup in Cardiff before, but this will be my first time as skipper. It is good to finish off with a final, we have done well in the league and to finish as strongly as we did is the most important thing.

"But the Cup run has been great. I would not say it is as big as the Champions League but it pushes it pretty close, it is an important trophy and we need to deliver."

If Liverpool do win it will be Gerrard's eighth cup winners' medal in six seasons, adding to his previous FA Cup success, two League Cup wins, two European Super Cup triumphs and both Champions League and UEFA Cup wins.

He continued: "We have got to match West Ham for effort and then hopefully our ability will take over.

"There is no way that any team under Rafael Benitez will go into a final and underestimate West Ham.

"We have beaten fantastic sides like Manchester United and Chelsea to get to the final, but it is always on your mind that after going on such a successful run you might not get over that last hurdle.

"West Ham are in the way and they have some fantastic players who will play the game of their lives.

"So we have got to be on our toes and play to the level we know we can.

"We have beaten West Ham twice in the league but this will be a very different game.

"The final still means a lot to me, a few people have tried to discredit the competition but I am not one of them. I know what it feels like to win an FA Cup, and I want to experience that again.

"It would cap a great season if we could win the FA Cup. As for me I feel as fit and ready as I did right at the beginning of the season.

"I feel there's plenty more to come and I can't wait for the World Cup."

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