Former Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard has suggested that his relationship with former manager Rafa Benitez has always been distant.

The 35-year-old - who swapped the Merseyside outfit for Los Angeles Galaxy this summer - won four trophies under the current Real Madrid head coach, but Gerrard has insisted that he was never close to Benitez.

"Most of my best days in a Liverpool shirt came under Rafa Benitez," Gerrard told BBC Sport. "Strangely we probably have the most distant relationship out of all of the managers I've worked with.

"It isn't a problem. I've got huge respect for Rafa as a coach. If we were in each other's company it would be fine, we'd be professional and we'd talk. There has been no contact really since he left Liverpool for whatever reason.

"But, we always had a distant relationship even as manager and player. I think that drove me on and spurred me on to the good times I had in the kit."

Benitez won 196 of his 350 matches in charge of Liverpool.