When Steven Gerrard turns on the lights of the ostentatious trophy cabinet he has had constructed inside his Merseyside mansion, it is not the European Cup, the Uefa Cup, the two FA Cup and the two League Cup medals that serve as an inspiration but the two empty places that remind him that his collection, and therefore his career, is incomplete. They are spaces only a Premiership champion and World Cup winner could fill.

'I've left space in the cabinet for those two,' said the Professional Footballers' Association Player of the Year who, barring a late reaction to his back injury this morning, will line up for England against Paraguay today. 'What a career I will have had if I get those medals. That's the aim.'