How Gerrard went from 'best night' to 'head like a box of frogs'

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Chelsea were spending fortunes, he was guaranteed success there," he says."I can't park my relationship with Liverpool. My head was like a box of frogs."Benitez's demeanour didn't help."I felt like he didn't rate me, he didn't trust me, he didn't want me," says Gerrard, 45."I've always been clear that I want to be a Liverpool player and a Liverpool player only, but with that doubt and with that coldness and being part of a team where you don't believe that you can compete at the top, that's when your head gets turned."Gerrard's former team-mate Jamie Carragher feels Gerrard "probably needed an arm round his shoulder"."Rafa Benitez was never going to do that," says the Sky Sports pundit.

If you're really emotional, you don't find the way to success."Time has been a healer - and Gerrard is now able to appreciate the Spaniard's methods."I look back at Rafa and think he's the best coach I have worked with," he says.A year before the Gerrard transfer saga, the future of another Liverpool youth product had dominated the headlines.Striker Michael Owen had also come through the academy but - like Gerrard - had become disillusioned with life at Anfield.Gerard Houllier had been sacked as manager in the summer of 2004 after the Reds finished 30 points behind champions Arsenal.When Benitez was hired as his replacement, his first task was to convince his two best players to stay. And I was thinking to myself, 'I guarantee you, you'll need me before I need you.'"Carragher says Benitez told Owen, who in 2001 had won the Ballon d'Or, he needed to learn to "turn on the ball quicker"."That's absolutely what I was probably the best in the world at, at the time," says Owen, 46.

"He certainly didn't go any way to convincing me to stay, put it that way."In August 2004, Owen joined Real Madrid for £8m.But Benitez's impression of that first meeting differs."You can see when you talk with someone if he's happy with the conversation," he says. Hamann describes heading for a warm-up while his team-mate went into the showers, then returning to find him back in his full kit."I went back to the dressing room and the first person I saw was Djimi," he says."I said: 'I'm coming on, who's coming off?' He said: 'I don't know.