Seemingly Important Question: Lampard or Gerrard?

Please don’t fall asleep. I know this is an old question, but it’s one that Fabio Capello will have to answer for England’s next World Qualifiers (Kazakhstan at home on October 11th and Belarus away on October 15th, since you ask).

Assuming Fabio Capello agrees with everyone else in the world (except Sven) that Gerrard and Lampard are not a good central midfield partnership… then who does he pick?

He might, but only might, try the old Gerrard on the left (but then tell everyone he wasn’t) trick again. But I doubt Capello will want to mess with the feelgood factor from Croatia, where the team looked nicely balance. So assuming both are fit, I’m curious about who will start in midfield against Kazakhstan and (more importantly) Belarus.

Both men showed how important they are today. Gerrard rescued Liverpool today with a sweet right footed strike and a penalty, while Lampard led Chelsea to a 4-0 win over Bordeaux with a goal and two assists.

My take on this: they’re equally good and very very similar. Both are central attacking mids, but still more box to box than traditional number 10. Both can tear up and down the field and pull a goal out of nowhere, but neither has what you’d call a bag of tricks. You wouldn’t get either of them confused with Juan Roman Riquelme for example.

The only differences I can see between the two is that Lampard is perhaps better at retaining possession (less long balls) while Gerrard is better at taking a game by the scruff of the neck.

Chelsea fans will say Lampard, Liverpool fans will say Gerrard. Because that’s how that is. My guess is that most neutrals will say Gerrard, but based more on personality than performance.

Really, it doesn’t matter. I 100% mean that. Either Lampard or Gerrard would do a great job for England if used correctly. And we’ve learned from bitter experience that they can’t both do that job simultaneously. So the important thing isn’t really which one of them starts, the important thing is that one of them starts without the other.