The international break was unfortunate timing for Aston Villa.
After three losses on the bounce, Villa started to gain momentum, starting with a valiant display against Manchester City to grind out a crucial point.
This was followed up by a narrow 1-0 victory against Southampton courtesy of Jacob Ramsey.
With the Villains picking up four points out of a possible six recently, they look to have turned a corner and will look to take this form into Sunday.
Here is what the former Liverpool midfielder had to say ahead of his side's game against Leeds United:
On Villa's recent performances:
Gerrard called on his side to carry on their impressive form before the international break in Yorkshire.
"The key for us is can we be defensively solid, can we build on our last couple of performances, you know against City, one of the best teams in the world and we limited them to one goal and managed to take a draw out of the game.
"We backed that up with a performance that was full of grit, resilience and steel and from now moving forward we need to maintain that, we need to try and build on them solid performances and when our opportunities come in the game to hurt Leeds, we have to be ready for that."
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Team News
French internationals, Boubacar Kamara and Lucas Digne have joined long-term absentee Diego Carlos on the sidelines, with the former set to be out for the foreseeable future.
However, Matty Cash and Cameron Archer are set to come back into the fold.
"We've had better days on the injury front, Boubacar [Kamara] will be missing until after the World Cup unfortunately so that's a huge blow, so that's him and Diego Carlos, two of our signature signings that are going to be missing a large part of the season.
"Lucas Digne is a unique situation, he has a heel problem and that's a problem we are going to have to monitor as we go along so it's very difficult to put a timescale on Lucas but he will certainly be missing in the coming weeks.
"On the Matty Cash front it's positive news, he should join the group on Monday into full training, he did part of the session today for the first time so we will welcome him back.
"Cameron Archer will come back into the squad as well, he's had a bit of a niggle, he will join the squad. So mixed news at best."
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On speculation around Douglas Luiz
Luiz was strongly linked to Arsenal in the final days of the summer transfer window, with reports suggesting that he was keen on the move to North London.
His future is still up in the air, with the midfielder yet to sign a new contract.
Despite this, Gerrard heaped praise on the Brazilian, insisting his performance levels have not dropped and reiterating his desire to keep Luiz.
"No news in terms of him extending his stay here so that situation hasn't changed but what I would say is he is very focused, he has trained well.
"We want him to stay here, I think the owners were very strong in keeping him here, we didn't want to lose him on the final day.
"He has performed very well since and has trained very well since. He is ready to go at the weekend."
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On Leeds
Leeds currently sit one point ahead of Villa, with Jesse Marsch's side showing a vast improvement from last season, despite losing club captain Kalvin Phillips and star forward Raphinha.
Going to Elland Road however is never an easy task as Gerrard knows.
"For us it's about preparing for a tough opponent.
Jesse [Marsch] has started the season very strong, of course they haven't had the best of results in the last couple but I'm sure he's very proud of what the players have given him so far this season, there's been big improvements in the Leeds team. They have signed and recruited extremely well.
"Going to Elland Road in front of a tough crowd, we know the challenge is big but it's exciting and we've prepared in the best way we can and we will be ready for the challenge when it comes."
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On improving further
Gerrard insisted that Villa have put their slow start to the season behind them and believes that they have turned their fortunes around.
"After the Arsenal game, conceding the goals the way we did, I think in terms of our defending, we needed to go back to basics. But we have to be better than just being hard to beat and going back to basics.
"We are Aston Villa and we have top players. We have had a very slow start, we have accepted the criticism that has come our way and we have stuck together, rolled our sleeves up and we seemed to have turned a corner with our recent performances."
"We know results are extremely important but we have a better chance of getting them if we perform better, so they come hand in hand, but the priority at the moment is results to keep moving up this league."