Steven Gerrard nearly supported Everton and infamously wore the blue shirt as a child, but tormented the Toffees at Liverpool and only lost FOUR games... the Aston Villa boss will be the pantomime villain when he returns to Goodison Park

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Steven Gerrard and Everton. It's complicated. 

The Liverpool legend heads to Goodison Park on Saturday - a venue where the Toffees faithful were mostly tormented by his all-action displays for their bitter rivals down the years. No, he won't be well received as he looks to add more misery on the managerless side with his Aston Villa team. 

Everton didn't have much to cheer about when faced with Gerrard in the Premier League era. Up against one of the greatest players of his generation, he ended up as the fourth-highest scorer in Merseyside Derby history with ten goals. 

There are teams you enjoy playing against as a footballer and he enjoyed playing against Everton. Liverpool won 30 games in the league against their local rivals with Gerrard in the side, and the former England captain lost only four times.

Steven Gerrard tormented Everton with Liverpool, scoring ten goals and losing just four times

He returns to Goodison Park looking to pile more misery on Everton with his Aston Villa side 

So Gerrard can expect to be the pantomime villain on Saturday lunch time. He can expect jeers and animosity from a crowd looking for any reason to get behind the team after a woeful campaign under the former midfielder's old boss Rafa Benitez. His presence will only give them a lift and add some spice to the game.

This should have been about a clash between Gerrard and Benitez - two allies becoming enemies after winning the Champions League together. Now the Spaniard has been sacked, the spotlight rests on Gerrard. 

His heart will always be with Liverpool, but it could have been a different story entirely on a fateful evening in 1986 - when the Reds went up against Everton in the FA Cup final. There was a five-year-old Gerrard, then a neutral fan, deciding which team he should support having grown up a stones throw from either stadium.

They didn't know it at the time, but Liverpool and Everton were playing to decide the allegiance of a future star. Gary Lineker had put the Toffees ahead in the first half - which nearly convinced Gerrard to become a Blue - before a double from Ian Rush and a Craig Johnston goal sealed the trophy, and Gerrard's heart.

Gerrard came close to supporting Everton after taking the lead against Liverpool in the 1986 FA Cup final, before the Reds stormed to a 3-1 win

Gerrard has had to deal with an infamous picture of himself wearing an Everton shirt as a child, admitting it was a 'mistake' and 'the naivety of youth'

'The cup final between Everton and Liverpool in 1986 swayed me to be a Red,' Gerrard told BT Sport in 2019. 

'Everton scored first and I was thinking I might be an Everton fan, but we managed to turn it around 3-1, so from that moment I became a Red forever.'

But while Gerrard put that behind him - he's found it tough to banish the infamous picture of himself wearing an Everton shirt as a child - taken a year after that FA Cup final - even after clearing up that he wore it as part of a competition. 

Every now and then the photo - featuring Gerrard standing in the blue shirt next to some of the club's trophies - does the rounds, but last year dismissed the significance and said he even had Spurs and Norwich kits as a youngster.

'That was a competition,' he told friend and former Liverpool team-mate Jamie Carragher - who grew up an Everton fan himself. 'I won that after a penalty shootout.

He has now developed a fiesty relationship with Everton after some heated encounters

'One year it was at Goodison and one year it was at Anfield. It was a local tournament but the prize was, you go to Goodison and get a brand new Everton kit.

'It pops up every couple of days on Instagram. I used to get all different kits for Christmas, I had a Tottenham kit, a Norwich kit.

'These pictures have never surfaced, thank god. But the Everton one keeps popping up.'

Earlier in his career he had described the moment as 'the naivety of youth' and admitted it was a mistake, dismissing claims he actually supported Everton when he was a child.

'A quick search on the Internet will reveal a photo of me as a schoolboy in a full Everton strip. Blue shirt, shorts, socks, the works,' he wrote in his 2006 autobiography.

'When I became big news with Liverpool, some enterprising Everton fanzines discovered the picture and printed it. They must have loved that! A huge debate broke out. Many people thought it was a fake. It isn't. It's a genuine photograph, taken in 1987. That is me, dressed as an Evertonian, and it wasn't at a fancy-dress party or for a bet.

Gerrard is aware he faces 'a cauldron of noise' from Everton fans when he returns with Villa 

'[Uncle] Leslie took me to Goodison when I was six and I saw some of Everton games on the way to their league championship. I won a programme competition to have my picture taken with the league trophy and Charity Shield at Goodison. 

'Dad went ballistic at the thought of his son, all in blue, standing proudly in the Goodison trophy room. 'He's not going,' Dad kept telling Leslie. You're not going, Dad kept telling me. But I did. I was seven by that time, mad about football, not that clued-up in those days about the intense rivalry between Everton and Liverpool. 

'I ripped open the wrapping, put the crisp blue strip on and headed off for Goodison with Leslie, leaving an enraged Dad behind. Disowning me must have crossed his mind. Leslie guided me into the trophy room at Goodison, all smiles, and the photographer snapped away.

'Now that my heart belongs to Liverpool, I look back on the incident and wonder what the hell I was doing. Put it down to the naivety of youth. We all make mistakes.'

It all adds up to a intriguing welcome back to Goodison for Gerrard, who knows he will get a tasty reception when he arrives in Merseyside - having just pinched Everton's left back Lucas Digne, making an immediate return.  

The fixture has some added spice to it, with Gerrard also pinching Lucas Digne from Everton

'I don't think it's difficult to predict what's going to be coming our way,' he said at his pre-match press conference. 'I think you're going to see a real cauldron of an atmosphere at Goodison, I think they'll be behind the team.

'The majority of them (the fans) wanted a changed in that position (manager). To have an iconic figure leading the team (Duncan Ferguson), it will be pretty similar to what happened when he took over previously.

'The atmosphere, noise and support behind the team changed and he got a big reaction out of the players. From our point of view, we need to be ready for that, we need to handle that and make sure we're the best version of ourselves.'

On Digne, he added: 'I'm sure the Everton fans will appreciate Lucas, because he gave everything for that club.' 

Everton vs Aston Villa is never normally one to mark down in your calendar. With Gerrard in charge, everything has changed.