AND SO IT BEGINS
I’m educating myself in terms of this league. I don’t underestimate it and it will take time for us to be really ready
FORTY-EIGHT hours before kick-off at Pittodrie and Steven Gerrard was grinning broadly. The anticipation of a new league season summoned feelings familiar from the 17 years he spent writing his name into history as a Liverpool player.
‘The nerves and the excitement ... I love it,’ he enthused, expressing the delight of someone reconnected to a true passion.
Of course, Gerrard is the first to admit much else is now different. He is about to take his first step as Rangers manager into the wild and wonderful world of Scottish football.
The journey will start with eyes wide open and a hunger to glean as much knowledge about this new working environment as quickly as is humanly possible.
‘I have looked at Motherwell. I went to watch them against Queen of the South in the League Cup and I will be going to St Mirren at three o’clock,’ said Gerrard.
‘I have watched five or six Aberdeen games and one at the end of the season when I knew I was coming in (to Rangers).
‘I am educating myself in terms of the league and individuals. We will learn together and grow together. It will take time and experience for us to be really ready.’
But Gerrard is not starting from base camp. Sitting at the club’s training ground yesterday, he insisted he never harboured the sniffy views some of his English compatriots hold about the Scottish game. A competitor to his core, he enjoyed watching the blood-and-thunder from his Merseyside home.
‘I have always followed football anyway. In terms of the Scottish league, Rangers and Celtic are the two clubs you always follow and you see more of their games,’ he added.
‘Most of the time when I played on a Saturday and there was an SPL game on the Sunday, I would sit down and watch it from afar.
‘Aberdeen did themselves and the league proud against Burnley the other night. It was a valiant effort and I thought they were really good.
‘They are a good team with good players. They have a manager who knows what he is doing, how to organise a team and make a team difficult to beat.
‘I have never looked at this league and underestimated any teams, because I have had the experience of playing against Rangers and Celtic myself.
‘I think it would be very foolish for any of our individuals to disrespect the opposition that we will be coming up against this weekend. This will be a good test for us.’
And a fascinating one. Having brought a fresh spotlight to the SPFL, no one doubts that Gerrard’s progress will be one of the premier narratives of this campaign.
It is his task to fashion a brighter future for Rangers. And he hopes digging into the past can help.
Former players and managers are all welcome at the Hummel Training Centre as Gerrard seeks a fuller understanding for his squad of what it takes to succeed.
‘In terms of this club’s history, I am not going to be an expert on that just yet,’ he admitted. ‘But since I got the job, I have been quizzing people and bending their ears to try to learn and educate myself more about the club.
‘I have had a couple of chats with Walter Smith and we will get round to having a lunch.
‘In terms of ex-players, this is an open door for them. They built the place.
‘We are here with a job to do and a responsibility, but we want to embrace our ex-players. I had a good chat with Nacho Novo last night, we saw Sasa Papac last week and Richard Gough came in for lunch a few days ago.
‘I saw Richard having a really close conversation with Connor Goldson and Nikola Katic. That’s gold dust. As a young Liverpool player, if I ever saw John Barnes or Ian Rush, it was magic.
‘I feel as though I have players who want to go out there and give everything. Players who understand what it takes at a big club.
‘I can’t control the expectations of the supporters. Fans are fans and they will get excited. They are supporting a huge football club and they are used to seeing success.
‘I can’t come in and control every single aspect. I think it’s my responsibility to take some of the heat and the pressure off the players and I will do that.
‘On the flip side, that’s what those players wanted. They wanted to come here and play in front of 50,000 with all the demands that brings.
‘They wanted to play in European nights and go away to Aberdeen. They want the rivalry. You can’t buy into that, accept it and then suddenly shy away from it.’
Goldson has been among the most impressive of Gerrard’s additions in their early European outings.
But the £3million centre-back still took plenty of inspiration from meeting Gough as he seeks to play a part in ending Rangers’ seven-year wait for a major trophy.
‘It was really good,’ said Goldson. ‘Richard told me a few things guys like Walter Smith used to say.
‘We spoke before the Osijek game and he told me not to worry if we didn’t score early on, just concentrate on doing your job. He said I’d done well so far. I really appreciated hearing it come from someone like him.
‘Rangers’ history has been built by guys like him and it’s brilliant to have them around. It gives guys like us something to aspire to and work towards.
‘Everyone is here to win things for this club and listening to those guys can only inspire us.
‘It’s a long season and there’s a lot of competition. But we have to believe we are good enough to win any competition we are in. We want to compete for the league and cups, while doing well in the Europa League would be massive for the club.
‘We go in to every 90 minutes thinking we can win and we need to do that if we are going to achieve what we want to achieve.
‘You have to aim high when you are at a club like this. No one will congratulate us for finishing second or third.’
STEVEN GERRARD insists he cannot wait to be plunged into the red-hot Pittodrie ‘cauldron’ tomorrow afternoon.
The Rangers manager is well aware of the depth of the historic rivalry with Aberdeen as he prepares to make his domestic debut in a mouth-watering Premiership opener.
Anticipating a feisty personal welcome in the north-east, the Liverpool legend is adamant these are precisely the kind of occasions his new-look side must relish as they seek to make their mark on the Scottish game.
‘It’s great, I love it, I can’t wait,’ he said.
‘It wouldn’t have been my first pick if I had done the fixtures! But listen, you have got to play everyone home and away — and some you have to play away more than home.
‘It will be juicy, it will be tasty. The rivalry has grown over the years before my time and before a lot of the players’ times.
‘We have to accept that, embrace it and go there and try to do our club and our fans proud.
‘As a player, I was obviously a tackler myself and that is where the rivalry has come from. So I would be very stupid to sit here and point fingers at anyone who threw in a bad tackle.
‘But, you know, this is what happens. At Liverpool, we had Manchester United and obviously everyone knew about Everton and then the Chelsea rivalry grew.
‘This is football. This is why we love the game and we are all fascinated to see the outcome at the weekend.
‘As a player and a manager, I can’t wait for kick-off and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to the stick I