Steven Gerrard, Liverpool Legend
The word ‘club legend’ is too often bandied about but in the case of Steven Gerrard, it’s no exaggeration. Liverpool was the only English club he ever played for, he was there for 17 years, played for them over 504 times and scored 120 goals for the Anfield club.
Perhaps most crucially of all, he was their inspirational skipper for 12 years. Another expression often used in football is that of ‘leading by example’ but in the case of Gerrard, he led in that way and every way possible.
Wearing the captain’s armband was the easy bit but it was the tough-tackling from the start, the hard-running, the geeing up of the troops and the crucial goals out of nowhere that made him so revered by the Kop as a leader. None more so than when they won the Champions League in Istanbul in 2005 or the FA Cup in 2006.
He’s made no secret of the fact that his ultimate goal in life is now to manage Liverpool. It’s more of a case of ‘inevitably’ than it is of ‘probability’ not only because of who he is but also because of the precedent set by the likes of Kenny Dalglish and Graeme Souness as Liverpool greats on the field who went on to be in charge of the club.
The question is, therefore: when will it happen?
How Successful has he been at Rangers?
Gerrard is now into his second season at Ibrox. In Rangers’ third season back in the Scottish Premier League they did the bare minimum expected of them by finishing second, but they were nine points behind Celtic come to the end of the season.
The highlights of the campaign were the two home wins they secured over their deadly rivals, the first one their first victory in the Old Firm since 2012. They also went 12 matches unbeaten at the start of the season, though they were knocked out of both domestic Cups by Aberdeen and crashed out at the Europa League Group stages, finishing behind Villareal (understandable) and Rapid Vienna (less understandable).
What will Gerrard have Learnt at Ibrox?
In some ways, it was a good appointment for him and he will have enjoyed being outside the English media spotlight by being north of the border. On the downside, he won’t have learned much that will have prepared him for the challenge of managing a Premier League giant. With all due respect to Scottish football, if you manage one of Scotland’s Big Two, you pretty much only have to worry yourself with those four Old Firm games because against everyone else, things pretty much take care of themselves.
You can check the sports spread betting markets for how many points Rangers are expected to finish on this season.
Another difference ‘when’ he takes the step of moving to the Premier League is the quality of the players at his disposal, and their egos. The Rangers players will be in awe of him and his achievements because he will have been a better player than any of them. But who knows what sort of world-class players will be in the Liverpool dressing room by the time he’s running it and what sort of personalities he’ll have to keep in check.
Whoever is in it will have the utmost respect for Gerrard and his achievements as Liverpool skipper but managing a player who has been at World Cups, Euros, Copa Americas and has Champions League winners’ medals, not to mention being on 200k a week, will present a whole new challenge to Gerrard.
What next for Steven Gerrard?
Given he was compared to Frank Lampard for the majority of his career as an England midfielder, it’s somewhat inevitable that the comparisons continue now they’ve both gone into management. After all, they both started managing ahead of the 2018/19 season and took somewhat unlikely gigs as their first appointments, Gerrard at Rangers, Lampard at Derby.
Gerrard, however, would be well advised to bide his time before jumping in feet first at the chance to manage his old club, as Lampard did. It’s been a tricky start to Lampard’s time at Stamford Bridge and though he looks the part and says the right things, there are suspicions that from a tactical point of view, he may still be a little ‘green’.
In Gerrard’s case, there’s little or no danger of him being given the chance to take the Liverpool job this year and probably not next year either, with Jurgen Klopp doing such a fantastic job. But his time will come.
The best option for him till the day arrives might be to accept a role at a Premier League club with slightly less ambitious targets than Liverpool and cut his Premier League management teeth there.
Maybe Bournemouth and Eddie Howe will decide their partnership is worth ending after all these years or perhaps the likes of Crystal Palace or Southampton may decide Gerrard is the man to improve their fortunes. Anyone of those could provide the perfect stepping-stone for the legend’s return to Anfield.
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