Interesting DM article about Gerrard

[plumbGER 24,518]

10 hours ago, BridgeIsBlue said:

"The Gers looks far less likely to implode as they did after Christmas last season" 

Based on absolutely nothing, we said the same this time last year only for it to happen again. 

Bollocks.

If you are beginning to hate reading the articles then don't read them.

[OhW 4,669]

Arteta is shite 

[ps95v7 387]

On 14/11/2020 at 09:24, LiverpoolBlue said:

Found this article from recent Daily Mail, haven't seen it mentioned here before;

Rangers are top of the Scottish Premiership and lead rivals celtic by nine points 

This season, celtic are in pursuit of an unprecedented 10th straight title triumph

The Hoops have two games in hand but Rangers are in superb form 

Halting that would cement Gerrard's status as a legendary boss at Rangers 

Gerrard's tactical nous in Europe shows how much he learned from Rafa Benitez 

It’s fair to say that some people worried for Steven Gerrard when he headed off to manage Rangers a few years back. 

The team had just been eliminated from the Europa League by Luxembourg's fourth-best side, Progres Niederkorn, at the time – a humiliation which saw his predecessor, Pedro Caixinha, remonstrating with fans while standing in a bush.

Gerrard was taking on a major weight of expectation and an even bigger fan-base. There were 9,000 in Ibrox simply to watch him being presented as manager. And if you think that celtic are the only obstacle - that an afternoon at Hamilton Academical is a literally a walk in a public park - then you’re forgetting the fact that beating the Old Firm sides is a matter of life or death for every other team.

 

‘It catches all the English managers out,’ observes one Scot who’s seen coaches come and go. ‘These teams want to kill you. They’re out to punch you in the face.

 

Rangers had just finished 12 points adrift of celtic - and were financially way adrift of them – when Gerrard pulled on the navy blue suit he’d had ready for days, to greet the 9,000. But now, having significantly improved the side in each of the last two seasons, he has them sitting top of the Scottish Premiership - nine points clear of celtic, a side they justifiably beat 2-0 away, three weeks ago.

The pressure is currently etched across the face of Neil Lennon, celtic’s manager, who is tasked with completing the fabled ‘ten-in-a-row’ - a 10th successive Scottish title - which has become his club’s daily obsession. Lennon will probably complete a treble with the delayed Scottish Cup final in December – yet can still expect the sack if Gerrard steals the hallowed crown. That’s the kind of madness you’re walking into in Glasgow.

In part, the reeling in of celtic, whose £56m annual wages eclipse Rangers’ £34m - is a product of Gerrard buying and bringing the best out of players who were cheaper than theirs.

Defender Connor Goldson has become outstanding. Midfielders Ryan Jack and Steve Davis have taken their games up a level. The general assumption was that Gerrard might struggle to deal with an incalcitrant player, after a professional lifetime of others telling him how good he is. 

Yet he’s deftly handled the Colombian Alfredo Morelos, the most naturally talented individual in his ranks. He drops Morelos with impunity but still gets goals out of him.

 

Little of all this seems to register in England, where the all-consuming Premier League narrative drowns everything out. But compare Gerrard’s foray into management with those of the contemporaries who have made the same leap – Frank Lampard, Mikel Arteta, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer or, at a push, John Terry - and you have to say he’s achieved more than any one of them.

Lampard took a Derby side who’d previously finished sixth in the Championship table to a finish of… sixth in the Championship table. Then he failed to win promotion through the play-offs. Then he landed the Chelsea job anyway. 

Arteta won an FA Cup after leaving Pep Guardiola’s side but is yet to demonstrate that a hardly-impoverished Arsenal are that much better. Solskjaer took Cardiff City out of the Premier League and has taken Manchester United nowhere. Terry is yet to surface from the Aston Villa coaching staff.

There’s been a psychological component to what Gerrard delivers and in this respect it is fascinating to observe him discussing Rafa Benitez in far warmer terms than ever before, in one new interview. 

‘I think at the time, when you’ve got this relationship with Rafa, you think he’s picking on you because he’s going into so much detail,’ Gerrard tells Champions Journal magazine. ‘Your ego gets in the way and you think he’s not liking you. Looking back, he was an absolute master of tough love.’ 

 

The Benitez methodology evidently works. Where once Rangers would be mugged on some distant field and look surprised, now they look ready.

But in the European setting, where supporters have been able to feel proud once again, Gerrard has also demonstrated a tactical intelligence. In wins over Porto, Feyenoord and Braga in last season’s Europa League, before eventual elimination by Bayer Leverkusen, he was all over the tactical challenge. 

All those years at Liverpool helped him with that. Rangers were also 3-1 up with 13 minutes to play at Benfica, last month, before the wealthy Portuguese side brought things back level.

‘A lot of our performances, especially away from home, have got a percentage of what I learned from Rafa,’ Gerrard adds in the new Champions Journal interview. ‘In terms of structure, in terms of principles: out of possession, how aggressive we want to be. There’s a lot of Rafa Benitez in Rangers performances.’

The Scottish writers who sit before Gerrard week-in, week-out, find him distinctly reluctant to engage in Liverpool talk. 

But if he can bring the championship home to Ibrox after 10 years, and quash that ‘10-in-a-row’, a route to the manager’s office at his beloved Liverpool will seem a little more attainable. He’s taking the long way home. He’ll have earned it.

Defender Connor Goldson has become outstanding. Debatable quote 🤔