I'm not even talking about their ability. Swap the teams that they played in and do we achieve the same results? Does Hendo's leadership help us win the CL in 05, and also the FA Cup and League Cup? Does he raise the standards amongst the team?
My point is that Hendo's successful 'leadership' period coincides when we signed some seriously world class players who transformed our team.
Well, as I said above, I don't think who is made captain makes a lot of difference. Swapping Hendo and Gerrard would be swapping one player for a better player... Certainly Henderson had the higher quality team mates and manager.
That said, I don't think we would be guaranteed to win the same cups if we had Gerrard. Gerrard is the better player, yes, but he was also a more self-driven player and less of a team player, he wasn't as defensively-minded (although he certainly could defend), etc. I'm not saying Hendo is as good as Gerrard, but if we had Gerrard instead of Henderson we might have been lacking defensively as Gerrard wouldn't have played in exactly the same position, and almost certainly wouldn't have been as willing to let Salah AND Mane AND Firm all take glory ahead of him.