​Steven Gerrard has given a candid view on what it is like to be the captain of Liverpool Football Club in a new book about skippering the Reds.





The Liverpool legend gave a frank and honest assessment of what the role entails in the new publication, called Liverpool Captains, which has been serialised by the ​Liverpool Echo.







Gerrard wore the armband at Anfield for 12 years before leaving the club that he had been with since he was nine years old, and revealed that he thrived under the pressure of leading his team out in every match he captained them in - even on the bad days, such as watching the Premier League title slip from his grasp in his final season on Merseyside.

He said: “You need to be thick-skinned to be captain. Before you accept the responsibility of being captain for Liverpool Football Club you’ve got to tell yourself: ‘There will be good days and bad days.’





“On good days you’ll feel on top of the world. On bad days you’ll feel sad and lonely. If you can’t handle the low days, when the s*** hits the fan and everyone’s out to get you, if you can’t handle those days mentally, don’t take the job.





“Every single day, even when I wasn’t playing badly, I felt that pressure. But I loved it, even on bad days. When we’d had a bad game or if I’d played badly, I used to tell myself: ‘I’m the captain. I need to put this right, and I’ll have another chance to do that in three or four days.’

“I dreamed about wearing the captain’s armband from when I was about 10. So when I got it, I wanted to enjoy it, even on bad days.”





Gerrard also reserved special praise for player-turned-pundit Jamie Redknapp, who was Liverpool captain during Gerrard's developmental years in L4.





The midfielder said that Redknapp had been his idol growing up, and that it was a pleasure to have learned so much about Liverpool off someone who truly cared about where Gerrard's career was going.

This is brilliant from Steven Gerrard on what it takes to be #LFC skipper https://t.co/599yBN7lG0 — Liverpool FC News (@LivEchoLFC) October 20, 2016

The 36-year-old added: “Redknapp was my hero. I love him as a guy and I loved him as a player. He went out of his way to help me.





“I was 16 and an apprentice on £47 a week. And he was a national star who played for England and LFC and was vice-captain under Paul Ince.





“Every day he’d call me over and check on me if I was all right, if I had the football boots and the equipment that I needed. And he’d tell me where he was off to after training and ask me to join him. He didn’t have to do that.





“When someone behaves like that to you at 16, it does something important to you. So when I was 26 and I was captain, I’d treat younger players the way Jamie had.”

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