Gerrard should give Toon a wide berth
SOUNESS BELIEVES IBROX BOSS MUST WAIT FOR ANFIELD JOB
GRAEME Souness has urged Steven Gerrard to resist any interest from Newcastle and stay put at Rangers. Steve Bruce remains Magpies manager for now. Beaten 3-2 by Tottenham under the gaze of Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) — the club’s new owners — Bruce is expected to relinquish his position once a replacement is found.
The English Premier League side are currently sifting through potential appointments. Belgium boss Roberto Martinez, Villarreal manager Unai Emery and Gerrard have all been named as leading contenders for a post yet to fall vacant.
Gerrard’s attempts to distance himself from the Newcastle speculation stopped short of unequivocally ruling himself out of a move. And Souness, the former Rangers manager who spent 18 months in charge of Newcastle, claims there are a number of reasons why he should.
The former Scotland captain left Glasgow for Liverpool in 1991 and believes Ibrox is the best place for Gerrard (pictured) to lay the ground for an ‘inevitable’ approach from Anfield in future.
He told Clyde 1 Superscoreboard: ‘I don’t think it’s one he should go near. My advice to him would be to stay where he is.
‘Although he has been in the Rangers job for three years, he’ll realise that’s a short time in management. He’s still learning after three years — but he’ll still be learning after 23 years.
‘I think he should wait, and he will wait, for the Liverpool job. It’s inevitable he’ll get offered it.
‘I don’t see Jurgen (Klopp) being there beyond the next two or three years. If Steven ends up being Rangers manager for five or six years, that’s a great education for him.’
Well-documented human rights concerns surrounding Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian custodians represent a further worry for Souness.
Less of a concern to supporters pining for a first trophy since 1955, the Geordie side currently occupy one of the relegation slots in England’s top tier after a winless start to the season.
‘I don’t think there’s any lure at Newcastle and when you look at the human rights aspect, I would find it hard to go and work for that club again with the new owners,’ added Souness. ‘I wouldn’t do it. I just would not do it.’
In football, the biggest lure of any club usually lies in their finances. And a recent online graphic showed that the new owners of Newcastle have a net worth of £320billion, a figure that dwarves the fortune of Manchester City’s Abu Dhabi owners (£21billion) or Roman Abramovich at Chelsea (£14.5billion).
In a call for realism over what Rangers can realistically achieve in Europe last month, Gerrard also offered the first hint of discontent over the level of spending in recent transfer windows.
‘If we want to keep growing and going to the next level we need to spend big money in transfer windows,’ he said. ‘It’s as simple as that. In the last two windows we haven’t spent a penny.’ Rangers, it should be pointed out, have also resisted any temptation to cash in on key players, despite offers for the likes of Alfredo Morelos from Lille and Nathan Patterson from Everton.
In a Q&A with members of fan ownership group Club 1872, former chairman Dave King expressed surprise at Gerrard’s words, suggesting the Rangers board had tried to support the manager as much as possible.
‘I think Steven is already on record, certainly in discussions I have had with him and comments I have seen him make in the media, in having pretty much unstinting praise for the support that he has had from the board,’ said King.
‘Between Ross (Wilson) and Steven they have done a really good job in pre-identifying players.
‘I think it would be a fairly obvious calculation for supporters to make to look at the quality of the player that has come into the club with (Jack) Simpson, (Scott) Wright, (John) Lundstram, (Fashion) Sakala and look at the players who left the club and there is no doubt that the wage bill has again gone up this season.
‘The board has supported the manager in the transfer market and I think that is his true belief.
‘My understanding is that he does recognise that he has been supported, but he is making more a comment that if we are going to make progress in the Champions League we need to start finding other ways to attract players.’
Failure to reach the group stage of the Champions League halted the upward trajectory of Rangers’ progress in Europe under Gerrard.
While some question whether one trophy in three years in Glasgow is enough to land a job in the English Premier League, the reputation of the former Liverpool captain remains high south of the border. High enough, Souness believes, to smooth the path back towards his spiritual home at Anfield.
‘Managing at Rangers and Celtic is as difficult as it gets,’ said Souness. ‘Simply because the focus is on you all the time.
‘Outside the top four or five in England, that scrutiny isn’t there. He’s getting a great education now for the next one which I think will be Liverpool.’