'A different beast': Jermaine Jenas explains why it was so hard to play against Steven Gerrard for Liverpool

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Steven Gerrard is your favourite player’s favourite player after the time he spent at Anfield.The Scouse maestro lit up Liverpool Football Club during the 2000s into the early 2010s with his incredible composure on the ball, accurate passing, and attacking threat.Gerrard will always be considered a legend of the club and a footballing icon for his time spent on Merseyside, captaining his boyhood club to European glory.It is no surprise that the now 45-year-old, since retiring from the sport, is still spoken of in high regard, with his respect among fellow professionals so high to this day.Jermaine Jenas was one of those players who were lucky enough to share a pitch with one of the Reds’ greatest footballers during his time at Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur.Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty ImagesJermaine Jenas lauds peak Steven Gerrard as one of the bestJenas was seen as a good young English player when he was bought by Newcastle for a fee of £5 million, which was still high then, before moving to Tottenham for £7 million, where he spent most of his career.Playing in that central midfield role meant that when he had to visit Anfield or welcome Liverpool to his home ground, he would have to stand toe-to-toe against the incredible Gerrard.Speaking to the Beast Mode On podcast with Adebayo Akinfenwa, the England international spoke of how hard it was to play against Gerrard during his peak, especially during that era of the Premier League.READ MORE: Steven Gerrard claims he played with a striker at Liverpool who was so underratedJenas explained: “Stevie treats you like you’ve walked into his house with your shoes on. He’s like you go to Anfield against Steven Gerrard.

He never let you down, basically.“That’s why it was so hard to play against him in my opinion. He was just a different beast.“And you couldn’t really stop Stevie because even if it was like, and you remember when we were, when I was playing the Premier League, it was me against you… Eye to eyeball, whoever wins this battle wins the game of type football.”It was a very different kind of football back in the day, and it was one where the No.

8 thrived due to the intensity of games, which allowed him to be his best self.As you can see, the amount of respect he has for the player is clear, as Jenas weighed in on the Paul Scholes and Frank Lampard debate, believing Gerrard was the best out of the three.Jermaine Jenas makes Kevin De Bruyne and Steven Gerrard comparisonHis praise for the midfielder did not stop there, as Jenas also made a comparison to a modern-day Premier League great in Kevin De Bruyne.Since Gerrard retired, there have not been many who can replicate his impact on a club or his ability on the pitch, but De Bruyne has, in his years at Manchester City, run close in his ability.But the Liverpool legend was an innovator, and Jenas said as much when describing how he would play on the pitch and how similarly the Belgian plays.He said: “And Stevie used to do these things where he’d go to like right back and he’d hit these balls to like Michael Owen that were like people talk about De Bruyne, like Stevie was doing that then.“These mad crazy like like whipped kind of balls into the channel and Michael (Owen) would get onto it and it was like you couldn’t you’d see him at right back and think, what are you doing there? And then before you know it, someone’s in on goal and you’re like, oh, I need to deal with that now.”It is no surprise that Jenas has given the player so much credit, given the legendary status Gerrard has reached in football, and how incredible he was for Liverpool.