GARY KEOWN
Gerrard has to do more than talk a good game
YOU are expected to win every game at a club like this. It’s the sentence you want on your card when it comes to getting the eyes down for a game of Rangers Bingo, trotted out ad infinitum by those within the dressing room, as much a part of the fabric of Ibrox as saluting the fans, marvelling at the history — 146 years unbroken, don’t you know? — and putting #watp at the end of your Tweets when you sign a contract.
Everything points to it being complete poppycock, of course. Steven Gerrard has won just 22 of his 42 fixtures as manager to date and still enjoys the unswerving support of the fanbase and a board still, somehow, throwing more money at more players.
Mark Warburton had walked the plank by this stage in his first season in the Premiership despite an almost identical record.
Pedro Caixinha, meanwhile, only managed 26 games at the helm — winning 14, incidentally — before it became clear the barking dog had to be put out of its misery before the caravan moved on... to the bottom of the ravine.
Gerrard is different to them, of course. To date, he has not been found standing in a bush, shouting at strangers about what’s happening in Vegas, staying in Vegas and how the alcoholic-in-the-making he has bought to play in midfield is the fittest guy on the training ground.
He isn’t yet jabbering on about ‘pitch geography’ and ‘ball retention’, unable to comprehend why others are keener to address the more pressing matters of lying fourth in the table and being spanked 4-1 at Tynecastle before finding out on Sky Sports News he has resigned.
Caixinha and Warburton had been found out long before their Rangers careers ended, their words exposed as unhinged piffle.
With Gerrard, such certainty is lacking. He has had a big rebuilding job to perform at a club that had lost its way, but it remains difficult to say with conviction that he is definitely going to cut it as their head coach.
What is evident, though, is that the weighty statements being thrown around by him and his players over the last week or two — and increasing in their intensity — have got to start being backed up by results.
Andy Halliday’s assertion this term will be a failure if it does not deliver a trophy is a touch too dramatic, but signs are required right now that Gerrard’s reign is going to be built on something more than the established bingo-card rhetoric.
The former Liverpool captain has delivered ultimatums, insisted he now knows who he can trust, described every game from here on as win-or-bust. All well and good.
Yet, what has actually happened so far this term to make you believe that Rangers have the wherewithal to string a run of victories together? Yesterday’s dismantling of St Mirren is only the second time all term they have won three on the trot.
Fail to make it four and the likelihood is that the title race is over. From that perspective, it is tempting to regard the next six days as the most effective signpost yet when it comes to predicting whether or not Gerrard really is capable of reviving Rangers long term.
It won’t be make-or-break for him. It can’t be. There is too much invested in this project to chop and change managers again. After the chaos of Caixinha, Gerrard has signed more than 20 players in seven months and has to be given time to knit them together.
There are big, big questions to be asked of him and his squad, though. And what better way for them to be addressed than in a double-header involving Pittodrie on Wednesday night and a cup visit to Rugby Park at the weekend? What better way to show that Version 3.0 of post-meltdown Rangers is more about doing what is expected than simply talking about it.
Gerrard’s time in Glasgow, so far, is not easy to measure. He grasps what his job entails more than Warburton or Caixinha did. He has orchestrated real high points such as the Ibrox wins over Celtic and Rapid Vienna. Yet, too often, such flickers of light are quickly dampened by a no-show in a League Cup semi-final against Aberdeen or a listless defeat at Kilmarnock.
Progress to the Europa League group stage carried considerable currency. However, a look at how the campaigns of the teams that provided the opposition are unfolding does invite revision of just how seismic that achievement was.
FC Ufa, vanquished in the qualifiers, are second bottom in Russia. Villarreal are second bottom of Spain’s Primera Division. Rapid are eighth in the 12-team Austrian Bundesliga, 28 points behind Red Bull Salzburg.
Rapid were there for the taking in the final game of the group. Yet, Rangers didn’t threaten. Indeed, that continuing lack of punch about Gerrard’s team carries echoes of Warbs. And that’s just one thing to worry about.
There’s a feeling the arrival of Jermain Defoe has left Gerrard unsure of his formation. Transfer dealings have delivered a plethora of central midfielders, but no obvious contender for the No10 role. There is no settled central defensive partnership.
Defoe needs to prove he isn’t past it. As does Steven Davis. And Gareth McAuley. Countless other signings, including expensive ones such as Eros Grezda and Borna Barisic, have to show they can handle this level of competition.
Gerrard is making noises about not having any bad eggs, but just ask most Dundee fans — or maybe even Dens boss Jim McIntyre — what they make of new boy Glen Kamara’s levels of commitment.
What stands out, though, is the patience of Rangers fans in the face of all this. They have been through much since 2012. All they really desire is clear, incremental progression. They understand Rangers won’t win every game. Likewise, silverware is not essential for now.
But coming a comfortable second in the Premiership, given the levels of financial outlay, undoubtedly is. Proving they can beat the likes of Aberdeen, following one draw and two defeats, undoubtedly is.
Having lost to them at Rugby Park and drawn at Ibrox, seeing off Kilmarnock on a regular basis undoubtedly is.
Amid the hollow words harking back to different times, that is the current truth of the matter. This week is the time for Gerrard and his men to deliver statements containing proper meat and meaning where it matters most. On the park.