I'm seeing a lot of Lampard vs Gerrard debates on my feed and I thought I'd give my genuine thoughts on it, this is thread is dedicated to Super Frank vs Stevie G

Firstly, I want to state that I believe Lampard is the better player of the two, but I am not going to use the simplistic argument of goals/assists/appearances/trophies to make Lampard out to be the better player. I feel that is not a sincere way to judge between the two

A better legacy does not mean better player. Ryan giggs has a better "legacy" trophy+assist wise than Ronaldinho, Hazard and Henry. But everybody in their right mind knows that the latter 3 players were all light years better than Giggs.

Lampard scored the equalizer in the CL final of 08, and the facup final winner of 09, as well as hitting the crossbar with a near identical 25 yarder in the fa cup final of 2010, league cup final of 07, and europa league final of 13(I love Lampard and remember this shit).

Jose Mourinho once said about Lampard "When he has a good game, he is the best player on the pitch. When he has a bad game, he is the second or third best on the pitch"

This statement is profound, because when I look back, I can hardly even remember Lampard having a bad game

The same cannot be said for Gerrard. I cannot think of specific games off the top of my head, but Gerrard has come under criticism for his tendency to be a bit rash, to regularly go for the spectacular, to cover every blade of grass and get out of position as a result

The worse opinion I have heard is that Lampard was a CAM and played high up the field. This cannot be further from the truth. Lampard played majority of his career at the left side of a midfield three, and 2012 and onwards, played in a double pivot in a 4-2-3-1.

Sure, in banter it's fair game to make a rival fan look silly, but it is not a holistic or genuine way of looking at the two players. If you mean to say Lampard has the better legacy, then sure. This is a fact that even Liverpool fans can't really deny.

Additionally, reducing the game to a matter of numbers, especially when you look at the circumstances the two players played in(Lampard in a superstar Chelsea XI, Gerrard quite regularly with some bumbling alcoholics aside from a few years of genuine top talent around him).

Football is not as binary so as to judge Lampard better than Gerrard purely based on his numbers/trophies. It's a 90 minute game and players exert their influence outside of attacking end product.

Of course, in the case of Lampard vs Gerrard, two very, very similar players who were the men to drive their teams forward, goals and assists do carry more weight than say, for example, comparing Lampard/Gerrard/Yaya Toure to Xavi/Iniesta/Pirlo.