By Mighty Reds
January 14 2006

Rafa Benitez believes that Steven Gerrard is improving with every match he plays and can only get better. Steven reads the game better now and has better players around him. He said:

"When I was manager of Valencia we all knew Gerrard was a great player, but at the time we were preparing a game to stop Michael Owen's movements hurting us.

"We saw that as the key to Liverpool's scoring. We had an idea how to play against that Liverpool team and we controlled the small details. I remember we managed the games without many problems.

"Now I think it would be harder for opponents to stop Gerrard. That's partly down to him but also because the team is improving. Now he analyses the game more than he used to during a match. He sees how a game is developing and sees the details.

"This is the final step he needed to make and it's something which comes with experience and maturity. I thought Steven would score 20 goals this season and now I would say he'll score more. Maybe he'll reach 25.

"The good thing is Steven can play even better than he is now. He is improving every day. Gerrard is one of the key players but we have a lot of intelligent players around him like Xabi Alonso, Harry Kewell and Luis Garcia who can help him play as well as he is.

"When you have a good player you must try and improve him even more. You can never say who is the best player in the world because there are so many fantastic players. But he is definitely one of the best."