«READ STEPHEN McGOWAN
IN PLACES like Aldershot and Mansfield and other hotbeds of footballing excellence, they like to think their nan could move to Scotland and win a league title. Capped 114 times for England, the experience of Steven Gerrard says otherwise.
The progress made by Rangers this season is difficult to underplay. They dominated the Betfred Cup final and lost to an iffy goal from Celtic’s Christopher Jullien.
They won their first league game at Parkhead in nine years. A Scottish Cup quarter-final against Hearts looms on the horizon.
After 25 league games, they’re eight points better off than they were last term. And, on Thursday, comes a meeting with Braga in the last 32 of the Europa League.
Had Gerrard done all this with an English club, they’d be touting him to succeed Gareth Southgate.
But Rangers are a football club held to ransom by expectation. At Ibrox, it’s all about the trophies. And while Gerrard’s team have improved this season, they can’t overcome an inconvenient truth. So have Celtic.
Suddenly, the champions are ten points and 18 goals ahead. Nine-in-a-row now looks more likely than not.
If Steven Gerrard ever concedes defeat to anyone, it might be a first. But Rangers aren’t asking the midfield superhero of yore to pull his cape on one last time. They’re pinning their hopes on Stevie G the rookie manager.
And unless he can drag a tune from a bruised squad of players soon, he won’t be a contender for the England job. He’ll be a contender for the axe.
After a second-half collapse in Kilmarnock, the Ibrox boss didn’t mince his words. He rarely does.
Never one to take refuge in tactical jibberish, he asked his players if they have the bottle to cope with the heat of a title race.
For journalists, it was a great headline. Whether it’s one that Rangers players cared to see all over the back pages and internet is another matter.
If it makes them angry enough to get back to playing the way they did before the winter break, then it’s job done. The worry is that the Ibrox boss has now thrown his players under a bus once too often.
He did it after losing the first Old Firm game of the season. He did again it after going down to Hearts the other week. And he did it after the 2-1 defeat on Wednesday night.
Sir Alex Ferguson had no compunction over pulling a hairdryer from the cupboard in the sanctuary of the dressing room. He would rather have sung a rendition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot on Sky Sports than flog his players in public.
Gerrard isn’t necessarily wrong in what he says. Far from it.
After a first-half Scott Arfield thunderbolt at Kilmarnock, Rangers blew a winning position. Again. They were 2-0 ahead at Aberdeen and finished dropping two points. They took the lead against Hearts at Tynecastle and lost the game 2-1. They did the same again at Rugby Park, a venue where they’ve won just once in seven league visits since returning to the Premiership.
In the last six top-flight games, the Ibrox have now dropped as many points as Celtic have in their last 26. The parallels with last season have become uncanny. Once again, dropping the bomb on Celtic has ushered in a nuclear winter.
And fans and directors are duty bound to start asking if the players are really the problem. One minute, the manager is fleecing his side. The next, he’s shouldering full responsibility for bad results.
At heart, every head coach knows the stark truth. The buck stops with him.
The very best operators don’t wait for games to change, they make it happen. The in-game management feels reactive when it should be pro-active.
A thin squad is at least as big a problem as mental flakiness. When Borna Barisic or James Tavernier are absent from the full-back positions, the team are weakened by poor service to Alfredo Morelos from the flanks.
But Gerrard signed Jon Flanagan in the first place. He authorised spending a whopping £7million on Ryan Kent. He overdosed the squad with wingers who don’t play.
And a world-class reputation as a player can’t shield him against bad managerial calls for ever.
Whatever happens, his Anfield legacy will guarantee that he leaves Rangers one day and walks into another job in England.
But the next few weeks could dictate whether he does so at a time of his own choosing to succeed Jurgen Klopp.
Or departs through a side exit in the Broomloan Stand to a waiting car with blacked-out windows, clutching a P45 en route to Milton Keynes or Derby.