The fact Steven Gerrard has had to actually confirm he refuses to manage one of his biggest career rivals in Everton only shows how staggeringly lazy the ‘journalism’ used to report such a story was.

We get it, Steven Gerrard gets clicks and hits, and his name is one of the most powerful tools in world football, but to genuinely try to link a Liverpool legend, an Anfield icon who also happened to be deeply content at his current position at Ibrox with the job of his arch-rivals is such utterly stupid media work we don’t even know where to begin.

Gerrard has been clear – the only job he wants in the future is Liverpool. His team, his blood. He admits he’s a two team man with Rangers now very much part of his heart, but his soul is Merseyside and always will be.

So to use his name in concert with Everton really was some of the most absurd ‘journalism’ committed to the airways in some time – it was barely any better than plugging Ally McCoist for the Celtic job.

But that Stevie did indeed have to poo poo the story completely was slightly embarrassing – not for him, but for those who had a straight enough face to report it as a real story.

Fair play to them, they got the hits – but their credibility sure took a whack.

Well done lads.