THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE

I picked the team I thought was right for the Celtic game. If people want to point fingers at me then I’ll take it on the chin, says Gerrard

THE best football managers are actors at heart. Old hams who know precisely when to slap on the greasepaint and don the mask.

They’ll never lift a BAFTA, but they know all the tricks. The ability to mask their emotions. The capacity to take on another persona or swear black is white when the occasion demands it.

Constructing a shield to get the best out of players and frustrate journalists chasing a line for the back page.

Learning to act hasn’t come easily to Steven Gerrard. Where other managers choose their words carefully and consider how best to manipulate emotions and control the news agenda, the Rangers boss is still getting to grips with that side of the job.

For journalists, he’s a breath of fresh air because, like Neil Lennon at Celtic, a straight question is met with a straight answer.

‘I’m not a good actor,’ he admitted once. ‘I am who I am. If it’s not going to work in management, I’d rather go down being me.’

Faced with accusations of choosing the wrong team against

Celtic, there are coaches who would start blinding people with science. The guard would go up and they’d hide behind tactical jargon and self-justification, painting themselves as keepers of the game’s great secrets and everyone else as an idiot.

Yet two weeks ago, the former England captain went with a team of central midfielders and no wingers against a makeshift defence perceived to be weak in the full-back areas. If people now think he got his team wrong, he’s not the type to take refuge behind possession stats or corners won.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning in the job,’ he said candidly yesterday.

‘I have conversations with managers who have been doing it for 20 years and they say they are still making mistakes now and learning.

‘There will never be a day when I stop learning — it was the same when I was a player.

‘I was still learning in the last few months before I hung my boots up, so I’m sure it will be the same as a coach.

‘I picked the team I thought was right for the Celtic game. If you get the amount of players we had on the day off it... to win derby matches you have to win your one v ones all over the park or at least the majority of them.

‘I can’t remember too many we won. Forget tactics, forget personnel. If you lose those battles you won’t win an Old Firm game.

‘But if people want to point fingers at me in terms of team selection, then I’ll totally take it on the chin.

‘Would I, in hindsight, have done anything differently? Maybe one or two things, of course, but you can’t go back and change things.

‘All you can do is look forward and maybe try to learn from where you went wrong.’

After a 2-0 defeat there was no moping or self pity. Jon Flanagan was the only player awarded pass marks by his manager and news of another hernia operation for the full-back threatened to add to the Ibrox gloom.

Yet Celtic’s buoyant post-match bubble was pricked early the next day when news emerged of a £7million bid for Ryan Kent. At Ibrox the day before, Rangers had lost a skirmish. At no point did Gerrard feel they’d lost the war.

‘We need to press the reset button,’ he said ahead of today’s home game with Livingston.

‘We’ve taken a lot of criticism — I’ve taken a lot of criticism — and rightly so. Because our performance wasn’t at the level that is needed to win an Old Firm match.

‘The players totally understand that. I could tell they totally understood it as soon as I walked in the dressing room.

‘We’ve had a long time to reflect on that. We have to suck it up, swallow it. Fortunately in football, after a disappointment you always get the chance to bounce back or start the process of bouncing back.

‘We’ve got Livingston on Saturday and I want my players revved up for that.’

There’s an assumption when Rangers play Livingston at home that they’ll win.

Yet a glance at the statistics shows a game riddled with potential landmines.

Gary Holt’s team have yet to play any Premiership big guns, but in nine games this season they remain unbeaten. In their last away game, they thrashed Ross County 4-1 in Dingwall.

Last September, they chalked up a 1-0 win over Gerrard’s side in West Lothian and Rangers can’t afford to be thinking too much about the visit of Feyenoord on Thursday. Not yet.

A programme of seven games in 22 days will test the Ibrox side’s depth and resilience. Celtic asked a serious question of them and Gerrard wants to see how they respond.

‘It is the reason we wanted another player through the door and, thankfully, that player happens to be Ryan Kent, who makes this squad an awful lot stronger,’ he said.

‘I am happy with the schedule we are going to be facing. We are used to it, we have done it now for the majority of 14 months, so the players are aware that they are going to have to recover fast.

‘The players are really disappointed in their showing in the Old Firm. Sometimes in football you can max out, play really well and get beat and you have to hold your hand up.

‘But there is even more frustration when you haven’t hit the levels you know you are capable of.’