This does not slip.

Steven Gerrard is Liverpool through and through. He was born in Whiston Hospital just six miles east of Melwood training ground and nine miles away from Anfield. Growing up on the Bluebell council estate in Huyton, about five miles east of the city centre, Gerrard spent most of his time kicking a football around with his older brother on a small patch of grass and a concrete cul-de-sac right outside his front door. He later credited these games with building his trademark toughness. At around the age of seven, a young Gerrard began playing organised grassroots football for his local team Whiston Juniors. The Windy Arbour playing fields, where the team played, were classic British public park pitches. Back in the 80s, they were notorious for being heavy, wide open to the elements and frequently waterlogged. That didn’t stop Gerrard from catching the attention of Liverpool FC scout Dave Shannon just a year into his grassroots career. At age nine, Gerrard officially joined the Liverpool Academy. Not long after joining the academy, a garden fork pierced the big toe of Gerrard’s right foot. Hospital doctors originally feared the worst and recommended amputating the toe to prevent the infection from spreading. However, Liverpool FC's youth academy director at the time, Steve Heighway, intervened. He refused to let them amputate, took over Gerrard's medical care, and had Liverpool's medical staff treat it conservatively. Gerrard eventually recovered and was back on the football pitch. 

As Gerrard entered his teenage years, he was clearly talented, but Liverpool was hesitant to offer him a Youth Training Scheme contract, a multi-year, government-subsidised apprenticeship offered to young academy players like himself. They wanted to see if he had the mental fortitude to match his talent. 

To force Liverpool's hand, a 14-year-old Gerrard did something unthinkable for a boy from Huyton: he went on trial with Manchester United. He even wore a Manchester United training kit and played a few trial games for them. It was a high-stakes bluff, and it ended up paying off perfectly. Liverpool panicked at the sight of their local prodigy wearing United red, realised what they were about to lose, and immediately rushed to sign him to an official seven-year apprentice contract. Gerrard signed his first professional contract with Liverpool on 5 November 1997. He then made his debut a year later, on the 29th of November 1998 against Blackburn Rovers, coming on as a late substitute. And from then on, the youngster slowly but surely set a name for himself in the Premier League, eventually replacing Sami Hyppiä as Liverpool’s captain in October 2003. 

And things quickly took off. 

The Champions League run in 2005, ignited by Gerrard's 25-yard half volley in the 86th minute of Liverpool's final Champions League group stage match against Olympiacos to send the club through, ended by what we now know as the Miracle of Istanbul, was the deciding tournament that well immortalised Gerrard’s legacy at Liverpool Football Club.

The 2008-09 Premier League season was no less spectacular, with Gerrard stacking up 16 goals and 9 assists in 31 appearances for Liverpool. However, the Reds eventually fell behind to champions Manchester United. 

Up until April 27, 2014, Gerrard has helped Liverpool to 2 FA Cup wins, 3 League Cup wins (now Carabao Cup), the spectacular Champions League win, 1 UEFA Cup (now Europa League) win, and 1 UEFA Super Cup win. Totalling 8 major trophies. 

Any football fan would realise there is one trophy missing. And perhaps the most important one, for some.

Gerrard and Liverpool have been fighting for that missing piece for 13 years leading up to 2014. However, throughout that stretch of what seems like a lifetime, they have only been considered serious title challengers in two seasons. 2001-02, when Gerrard was only 21, and 2009-09, with both campaigns eventually succumbing to the brilliance of Arsenal and Manchester United, respectively. 

So with Liverpool heading into their last three matchdays in the 2013-2014 season, 5 points clear at the top of the table, the message was clear: don’t let it slip. 

Gerrard made sure that was clear after their 3-2 victory against title rivals City, letting out an impassionate rant of “this does not slip” amongst a huddle with Balotelli, Sterling, Suarez and more. 

A few weeks later, against Chelsea, Gerrard let it slip. 

With Liverpool down 1-0, Liverpool’s left centre-back Mamadou Sakho played a comfortable square pass to the skipper close to the halfway line, who dropped deep in between the centrebacks to progress the play, something normal and common for a deep-lying six like Gerrard, and certainly something that he has done over thousands of times. As the ball was coming in, Gerrard naturally opened his body, aiming to cushion the ball on his half turn, with his body movements seemingly in position for a cross-field switch to the right flank. However, as the skipper put his head up to look for the switch, he felt no ball come in contact with his right boot. And suddenly, the ball was under the feet of Chelsea’s squad striker, Demba Ba. Gerrard, seeing the catastrophe unfold, quickly extended his hamstrings in an attempt to burst and potentially make a last-ditch, skipper-esque tackle to stop the attack. Easier said than done, he ended up slipping and losing more ground to the already bursting Demba Ba. And a whole-hearted trackback was eventually in vain as the ball slid through Mignolet’s legs into the back of the Liverpool net. 

And from then on everything changed. Liverpool lost the game 2-0. Their 5-point lead at the top of the table suddenly disappeared, only 2 points above Chelsea and 3 above City, who had a game in hand. A still competitive title race, the catastrophe further escalated for Gerrard and Liverpool as they failed to hold on to a 3-0 lead against Palace, with the Eagles scoring three times in the final 12 minutes to hold the title challengers to one fatal point. 

The final matchday saw Liverpool defeat Newcastle 2-1, but City eventually took the title to the Etihad with a 2-0 win over West Ham to finish 2 points above Gerrard and his Reds. 

And there it is. 

The closest Gerrard ever was to the Premier League trophy, yet a campaign overshadowed by his slip against Chelsea. The coverage went beyond simply analysing the mistake. It became part of the “Gerrard cost Liverpool the title” storyline. The Guardian later described the slip as having been exaggerated into the cause of Liverpool's failure, despite other factors such as the subsequent Crystal Palace collapse and Liverpool's defensive record. But that didn’t matter to the pundits and the media; they wanted a compelling narrative to bring in viewers and attention, and quite frankly, the slip did just that. 

But that was just the start of what already was a nightmare for the Liverpool man. Heavy criticism from the media foreshadowed a full-blown schadenfreude agenda against Gerrard that followed. From songs and chants at Stamford Bridge to “caution: slip hazard" signs to “Slippy G” and internet banter. 

The latter, especially, is something increasingly normalised in our footballing world, with keyboard hecklers taking over the job of pundits as unqualified criticisers of every wrongdoing on the football pitch. And now that wave of criticism was suddenly all inflicted upon one man himself, the Liverpool skipper who was known to be the harshest on himself. 

How much of an emotional toll did Gerrard endure through? We would never fully know. He was one of the most emotionally driven players in football and Liverpool’s greatest skipper ever. And part of being a great skipper is masking that guilt behind a facade, putting on a mask and continue leading the team forwards, no matter how heavy of a burden sits on your heart. 

And perhaps our best idea of what that burden was like for him is through his 2015 interview with Donald McRae and the Guardian. Gerrard, having played his final season with Liverpool in 2014-15 and transferred to LA Galaxy by the time of the interview, reflected on his slip. He spoke about the lasting impact of the moment and how he can never seem to get it off his mind. He described himself crying in the car afterward and feeling numb for days. He discussed hearing opposing fans repeatedly sing songs about the slip throughout his final season. He even had to clarify that he had no intentions of taking his own life, explaining, "I wasn’t suicidal. I’ve never been suicidal. I can just imagine that people who are suicidal might feel pretty similar to how I did.”

But the six words that stuck with me the most were one of critical self-reflection.

“I’m probably too harsh on myself.”

A pretty straightforward statement, and yet such a powerful statement. 

If that man, Liverpool’s longest-serving skipper, arguably the greatest Liverpool man of all time, had the humility and awareness to acknowledge that he was “too harsh on himself”, then you – reporters, pundits, interviewers, writers, fans, can take a step back and take a quick look at yourself. 

One of the greatest captains football has produced, recognised that even his own standards could become excessive. Yet somehow, the people paid to analyse football rarely seem to recognise the same cruelty in themselves. Reporters turn a moment of mistake into headlines for a lifetime. Pundits turn them into exaggerated narratives at the cowardly protection of their own nostalgia and pride. Television panels replay them until a single second becomes a player’s whole identity. And with social media in full blossom, everything gets amplified.

For what?

Perhaps, then, those words were never meant only for Gerrard. 

We ask footballers to have the mental strength to withstand our judgement. Perhaps it is time we asked ourselves to have the moral strength to know when to stop.