Blog: Marathon man SG still so important

Just like Joe Allen - who is also missing the last stretch of the campaign after shoulder surgery - the skipper will be determined to come back fitter and stronger next season, but that would be a truly astonishing feat given the heights the captain reached in 2012-13.

Up until the final 19 minutes of the recent 6-0 win at Newcastle, Gerrard had played in every minute of every one of Liverpool's Premier League matches this season - a remarkable enough achievement on its own but an even better one when you consider that he's 33 this month and had only played in more league matches in a season on one previous occasion, the 2006-07 campaign.

Much of this endurance can be attributed to the strength and fitness conditioning regimes installed by Brendan Rodgers and his coaches, but just lasting through matches was never going to be enough for Gerrard. Not when there was authority to be stamped all over a large number of them.

The Reds skipper was recently named in pundit Gary Neville's team of the season on Sky Sports, and it is hard to argue with the former Manchester United defender.

If you include the strike at Norwich in September which was bizarrely taken away from him by the mysterious dubious goals panel, Gerrard scored 10 Premier League goals this season. It is his highest league total since hitting 16 the year the Reds finished second with 86 points in 2008-09.

Perhaps even more tellingly, Gerrard's 13 assists this season mean that only the Chelsea pair of Juan Mata and Eden Hazard as well as Manchester City's Carlos Tevez have created more goals than him. His influence on the Liverpool side is there for all to see.

Yet that influence goes beyond the stats, the goals, the assists and the points he's won for his team.

In years to come, when Gerrard is either putting his feet up or - who knows? - even taking  a seat in the Anfield dugout, the influence he will have had on others will be bearing even more fruit.

The likes of Raheem Sterling, Suso and Andre Wisdom are always going to remember this as the season that they earned extended, impressive runs in the first team, but they are also going to recall it as the campaign that they got to learn from Gerrard first hand.

The skipper could be seen talking to Sterling throughout the warm-up before the opening home league game of the season against Manchester City, and although that level of leadership and guidance is nothing new from a player who will be celebrating 10 years as Reds captain come October, it signified just what an important role he has in Rodgers' largely youthful team.

Perhaps, in time, Gerrard will take more of a back seat and let the younger legs do more of the work, but as the above stats indicate that would surely have an adverse affect on Liverpool's results.

And so all that's left is for him to keep on doing what he has been doing during his 15 years in the first team. That's gone pretty well so far.

He may be on the sidelines now but Gerrard will be back next season to carry on being the figurehead and the standard-bearer for this Liverpool side, providing inspiration and perspiration in equal measure.

No-one would want it any other way.