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Gerrard holds the key in this season-definer

Ever since the magic of Michael Thomas in 1989, this fixture has taken pride of place as one of English football’s finest. Tonight’s Anfield clash promises to be the latest in a long line of epics to have shaped a season.

How well Gerrard handles a player of Mesut Ozil’s calibre will show whether he is capable of extending his Liverpool and England career into his late 30s. Photo: Getty images

How well Gerrard handles a player of Mesut Ozil’s calibre will show whether he is capable of extending his Liverpool and England career into his late 30s. Photo: Getty images

Ever since the magic of Michael Thomas in 1989, this fixture has taken pride of place as one of English football’s finest. Tonight’s Anfield clash promises to be the latest in a long line of epics to have shaped a season.

League leaders Arsenal will not be intimidated. They love it on Merseyside and are unbeaten in their past six league visits, with three wins and three draws. In fact, of the current Liverpool side, only Steven Gerrard and Daniel Agger have tasted victory over the north Londoners on home turf.

Brendan Rodgers’ men need not feel down, though. They have won 10 of their 12 home matches, scoring 33 goals, so playing in front of the Kop has rarely felt more comforting.

In fact, still glowing from their awesome 4-0 destruction of neighbours Everton last week, the Reds will justifiably feel a repeat of the power, purpose and poise that oozed out of them that night should be enough to make it victory No 11.

Despite hogging the headlines this term (and rightly so), Luis Suarez is not necessarily the key man for Liverpool in this contest. I think it is the skipper, Steven Gerrard.

At 33, he has reinvented himself as a defensive midfielder and despite one or two indifferent performances along the way, the veteran now seems to be in his element playing the role of bouncer.

Standing tall in front of a less-than-convincing central defensive pair, the England star has begun to relish guard duty and the chance it gives him to snap into tackles on gifted young playmakers who think they can breeze through the gaps.

Plonking himself in the hole and telling teenage upstart Ross Barkley that “you’re not coming through” is one thing, but tonight’s challenge, where he has been charged with the task of ensuring the understated genius of Mesut Ozil is kept under control, is markedly different.

It will be Gerrard’s stiffest test yet, and a true examination of his defensive credentials. Success in handcuffing a player of elite level will lead to widespread belief that he is capable of extending his Liverpool and England career into his late 30s.

Failure will, in all likelihood, propel him two or three steps closer to the retirement trap door. It is a huge 90 minutes for the man with the Liverpool armband.

Ozil himself will be in the spotlight too. For all his mercurial touches, flicks and subtle skills, there is a growing tide of voices who claim the £42.4 million (S$87.9 million) German needs to take a big match by the scruff of the neck and dominate it.

I do not feel he has to prove that, not yet anyway. But with every good-but-not-especially-great display that passes by, the sceptics are ravenously adding weight to their argument that Ozil is shaping up to be an expensive disappointment.

If he runs the Reds ragged on their own stomping ground, takes the ageing Gerrard to the cleaners and inspires a pivotal three points in the title race, the debate will effectively be over.

So despite his class, and more pertinently because of his class, this is also a game where Ozil will be under the utmost scrutiny.

I will be there to see it in person, not in a work capacity for once, but as a fan alongside my 13-year-old son. Standing in the away end (I assume no one will sit), the pair of us will no doubt be gripped on the season-defining action played out in front of us.

I will be closely watching how Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny cope with S-A-S (Daniel Sturridge and Suarez, for those of you who are still unsure what the acronym stands for). I will be avidly scoping Santi Cazorla’s battle to upstage fellow skills-smith Philippe Coutinho.

But most of all, I know that I will not be able to take my eyes off of the big battle: Gerrard v Ozil.

I suggest you do the same. It will be a contest to savour.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

TODAY’s EPL analyst Adrian Clarke is a former Arsenal midfielder who has played at every level of English football. Now an experienced sports journalist, he writes for many publications around the world. Follow him on Twitter @adrianjclarke

LIVE ON TV:

Tonight:

Liverpool v Arsenal (mio TV Ch102 and StarHub Ch227, 8.45pm)

Chelsea v Newcastle (Ch102 and Ch227, 11pm)

Norwich v Man City (Ch103 and Ch228, 10.55pm)

Southampton v Stoke (Ch104 and Ch229, 10.55pm)

Aston Villa v West Ham (Ch105 and Ch230, 10.55pm)

Sunderland v Hull (Ch106 and Ch231, 10.55pm)

Crystal Palace v West Brom (Ch107 and Ch232, 10.55pm)

Tomorrow:

Swansea v Cardiff (Ch102 and Ch227, 1.30am)

Tottenham v Everton (Ch102 and Ch227, 9.30pm)

Man Utd v Fulham (Ch102 and Ch227, 11.55pm)

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