Patrick Barclay: The crucial difference between Steven Gerrard and Diego Maradona

No player is bigger than the club. Although not absolute, it is a good rule, proved by the near-impossibility of finding exceptions such as Diego Maradona at Napoli between 1986-90.

And, with all due respect to Steven Gerrard, he has never quite been in that class. There is a comparison in that Gerrard has spent his Liverpool career, as Maradona did his time in Italy, surrounded by largely inferior performers.

A difference is that Maradona led Napoli to two national titles, the latter entailing ascendancy over by far the best team in the world, Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan.

True, Gerrard distinguished himself with a match-saving performance in a Champions League triumph in 2005 — but even that can be trumped by Maradona’s inspiration of Argentina to a majestic victory in the World Cup of 1986.

If we are to put Gerrard in proper context — and it would be helpful, given some understandably intoxicated assessments since he announced he would leave Anfield at the end of this season — he should take his place in the pantheon alongside Frank Lampard, a fellow England centurion, Champions League winner and Premier League great.

That’s another interesting comparison, for, although Lampard may have been hurt by Chelsea’s decision to let him go, he merely got on with his life, offering no such thoughts — even though he may have been tempted — as Gerrard has aired in the Liverpool Echo.

The interview included this especially icy sentence: “It simply came down to the fact that the idea of being a squad player didn’t excite or motivate me.”

So pity Brendan Rodgers. Although the decision to leave was Gerrard’s and not his, although it was the opposite decision to that made by Lampard and, several times, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, it is hung round the Liverpool manager’s neck. Will it be understood that Rodgers did it for the club? Or is Gerrard too big for that?