Stevie’s on a short fuse
THIRTY-EIGHT seconds.
That’s how quickly Steven Gerrard lost his head in a grudge match against Manchester United as Liverpool’s captain.
So it might explain why the Rangers gaffer is a bit reluctant to slaughter his own Ibrox players for getting caught up in the heat of battle in today’s Old Firm derby at Celtic Park.
Gerrard allowed the red mist to descend eight times during his Anfield career.
And four of those were in powder-keg fixtures against either Merseyside neighbours Everton or fierce rivals United.
His most notorious, in March 2015, was for a stamp on Ander Herrera less than a minute after he had come on as a half-time substitute.
For days, Gerrard had been livid about being left out of the starting line-up.
And who was Liverpool manager that day?
Brendan Rodgers, the man he will go toe-to-toe with today in the season’s first Old Firm clash.
Gerrard said: “That United one after 38 seconds – I think that sending off had been coming since the Thursday before the game when I BRENDAN RODGERS has demanded a postmortem on Celtic’s nightmare transfer window.
The Hoops missed out on top targets like John Mcginn and endured a fraught final week with Dedryck Boyata and Moussa Dembele both downing tools over moves found out I wasn’t going to start. I was a player who played on emotion. But sometimes I got the balance wrong.
“I’m human and my players are human. They’ll get it wrong as well and I accept that. What we can’t accept is it happening a lot.
“The Old Firm game is one that’s magnified more than any other. So it’s important the players get that balance right and it doesn’t spill over.
“I appreciate that in Scotland there are two huge clubs, the history, the fact they’re in heavy competition – that makes it similar to Liverpool v Manchester United.
“Even the local derby against Everton, it’s hatred. Half of Merseyside liked me and the other half never will. That’s life.
“I know it’s the one the fans want – out of all of them – and that’s something I felt straight away here since I walked through the door.
“But I love a challenge and, with Brendan up here, it makes that challenge harder.
“It’s not about me trying to topple Brendan, it’s about Rangers trying to compete with Celtic again – because we haven’t done that for a few years.” which were refused. But the latter finally signed for Lyon for £19.7million. Rodgers (below) said: “It’s clear it hasn’t been an ideal window for us, but we’ll review it. “We want to avoid having a window like this again. We aimed to keep players, then add quality into key areas of the field. But it was not easy.”