Liverpool and England legend Steven Gerrard didn't hesitate when naming the best midfielder he played alongside

Liverpool icon Steven Gerrard didn’t hesitate when naming the best midfielder he’d played alongside.

Gerrard was a talismanic figure across nearly two decades at Liverpool, and often the best player in various Reds squads.

Meanwhile, Gerrard was part of England’s notorious ‘Golden Generation’. On international duty the midfielder played in teams that boasted David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Paul Scholes, and Michael Carrick in midfielder, among several others.

However, the Liverpool great has said the one player the stood apart from everyone else was Xabi Alonso.

In Gerrard's 2006 autobiography, the midfielder described seeing Alonso in his first training session at Melwood. He said: “I thought to myself: ‘Top signing. Pure class. Touch, vision, the creative works.”

Gerrard expanded on that praise in a column for the Daily Mail nine years later.

Then Gerrard said: "It was clear Alonso was royalty after our first training session together in August 2004, and Rafa Benitez, who had been so clever to buy him in the first place, was equally stupid to sell him to Real Madrid five years later.

“He was, by some distance, the best central midfielder I ever played alongside.

Gerrard named Alonso as the best midfielder he's played alongside (Getty)

"It was a disastrous decision to sell Alonso, and especially for just $39 million — which looks a snip now when you reflect on all he has achieved subsequently, both at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich and with Spain, winning the Euros and the World Cup.

“I blame Rafa entirely for the loss of Alonso. He could still have been playing for Liverpool six or seven years after he left in 2009."

Benitez infamously tried to sell Alonso in 2008 to raise funds and sign Gareth Barry. At that time however, Alonso did not want to leave Merseyside.

The following year Alonso’s stance changed and he submitted a formal transfer request to the Reds in order to push through a move to Real Madrid.

Liverpool did not end up signing Barry, who joined Manchester City in 2009, while Alonso spent eight years playing for Los Blancos, and then Bayern Munich.