Few players have embodied Liverpool’s fiercest rivalries quite like Steven Gerrard.
Across 17 unforgettable seasons at Anfield, the former captain lived and breathed the intensity of clashes with Everton and Manchester United, scoring iconic goals, celebrating famous victories and wearing the weight of those battles as a badge of honour.
The Merseyside Derby with Everton is a battle of neighbours, divided by club colours but united in local pride, producing tense, hard-fought encounters.
Meanwhile, the rivalry with Manchester United transcends geography, rooted in decades of football dominance and deeper cultural competition between the two cities.
From title races to cup clashes, both fixtures carry immense emotion, with bragging rights extending far beyond the pitch, fuelling debates in pubs, workplaces, and homes across the country.
During a quick-fire Q&A session with ex-teammate Peter Crouch, Gerrard batted off answers to a series of questions before coming to a question that he couldn’t bring himself to answer — beating Everton or Manchester United?
Gerrard froze briefly and delivered a brutally honest response.
“That’s like, ‘which one of the Kardashians?’ That’s tough. I can’t.
[Hate both of them?]
I don’t… yeah, I hate both of them!”
Gerrard wrote his name in the Reds’ history books, making 710 appearances and winning seven major trophies, and the light-hearted exchange perfectly captured what those fixtures meant to the midfielder during his Anfield career.
Against Everton, Gerrard scored 10 goals in 33 Merseyside derbies. His hat-trick in a 3-0 win at Anfield in 2012 remains one of the most iconic performances in the fixture’s history.
The former England international relished encounters against Manchester United too, scoring nine times. His most famous moment came in 2009 when he won and converted a penalty at Old Trafford, kissing the camera in celebration as Liverpool thumped their old enemies 4-1 on their own turf.
For Reds fans, seeing their former captain wrestle with the question will only reinforce why he’s so loved. He never took either rivalry lightly, saving some of his most iconic moments for these occasions.
Whether it was silencing Old Trafford or celebrating in front of the Kop after beating Everton, it didn’t matter — the midfielder always delivered.
In the end, his hesitation to answer was the most honest response — for Gerrard, beating both Everton and Manchester United was equally sweet and the goals and memories he created against them speak for themselves.
