Napoli coach Rafa Benitez hopes Steven Gerrard knows how much he appreciated him at Liverpool.

Benitez wrote in the Mail on Sunday: "I know Steven has joked about how difficult it was to get a compliment from me in those years. But I think he realises now how highly I regarded him.

"If you have a very clever son or daughter and your other child is not so clever, you would be telling the one who is not so clever: 'Oh. That's fantastic!' But the one who is clever, you would be pushing all the time. That's how they will improve.

"Of course, we did encourage him and say: 'Well done' - just not every day. In the end, it was Steven who made the most out of his ability and we were just the coaching team lucky enough to be in place at that stage of his career.

"It got to the point with Steven that even if he was having a rare bad day you would still be thinking: 'He's not playing well but still I have to keep him on because he can score inside or outside the box or from a free-kick.'

"Whatever he does next, I'm sure he'll be a huge success. And now that he is approaching the end of his career at Liverpool, I can safely say a huge: 'Well done!' And hopefully he knows just how much I appreciated him."