Originally published at: https://www.rangersnews.uk/columnist/rangers-gerrard-75-success/
Sunday’s Scottish Premiership meeting with St. Johnstone will mark Steven Gerrard’s 75th competitive game as Rangers manager – but has the Liverpool icon been a success so far in the Ibrox dugout? When Gerrard was first appointed as Ger boss 16 months ago, there was some scepticism among some supporters at the risk of appointing…
Beyond question. Took us from getting pumped out the 1st round of Europa League to qualifying 2 seasons in a row through 4 rounds and beating Feyanoord last night. That alone is an enormous success in the context of where we were before. Getting the coefficients up will give us a better chance of qualification to the group stages for years to come, which in turn brings us money that will help us to win the title.
The sheep are back where they belong, and it’s only a matter of time before 55.
Do you know how long it took Alex Ferguson to win the title at Man U?
Yes he has been a success especially in Europe, some might say no because there has been no cup wins or league win and there has been some signings that can be questioned but what manager has 100% success in signings? As for winning cups and the league I think it will come this year, if it does not he should be sacked. He has spent over 10 million this year so there needs to be improvement on last year if not his position will be questioned. 55 this year is on the cards but SG needs to pick the right players and have the right tactics, the last game against Celtic his selection and tactics were questioned so we will wait and see.
It would be interesting to know who you would want as Rangers manager? I don’t want to sound like a broken record but managing Rangers has got to be one of the toughest jobs in football a huge fan base and the expectation to get the club back to where it belongs but little money to do it with yes £10 million is a huge amount of money to Rangers at the moment but in the football world of 2019 it’s pocket money ,to move Rangers on to the next level the club needs more investment and stability
In Scotland 10 million is not “pocket money”, no other club is near that amount of spending other than Celtic so with that amount spent the only team we should be worrying about is Celtic. Realistically we should be expecting to reach finals of domestic cup competitions unless we meet Celtic early on and get knocked out. It is not a lot of money in European terms so if we stay in Europe after Christmas it would be great. I know it is harsh to say he should be sacked if there is no improvement on last year but to go another year with nothing would be failure. Taking into account SG’s mistakes against Celtic already and a spate of dodgy signings in Polster, Grezda, Coulibally, Lafferty, McAuley, Stewart, Ejaria, Sadiq and allowing Candieas to go and Hastie to go on loan I think that if we have another season with nothing his time will be up. As for who steps in that will be looked at at the time and who is available.
He definitely should be delivering a trophy, but if he doesn’t he definitely should not be sacked - Rangers history is built on managers who were given a long tenure to fully implement their philosophy, and crucially, to learn from their mistakes and keep building - we need to get back to that and knee jerk reactions are the last thing we should be mandating
Gerrard has done a fantastic job to date and deserves at a minimum a three year period in charge
OK so let’s say after two years SG has spent a huge amount in Scottish terms on players, he has not won a single trophy, there is no league win and no European football after Christmas why would you consider that a “knee jerk reaction” and would you still think he has “done a fantastic job”? Its not as if he would be getting sacked after a few months like a “Le Guen” 240 days, Caixinha 227 days or Warburton less than two years and he actually won a league title and beat Celtic in the Scottish cup without spending a fortune so why was he not given as you say the time to keep building? If Gerrard is as you say doing a fantastic job what sort of job was Warbs doing? Even so lets give SG three years and if he fails sack him.
I absolutely think he should be winning a domestic trophy and if it’s not the league we should also be pushing Celtic even closer - I think anything less than that and he’s underperformed this season.
However, I think the job he did last season to put us back into the clear top 2 again (like rossco said putting Aberdeen back in their place) and to take us into the europa league group stages two seasons in a row (his European record so far is outstanding with what’s he’s been working with) has been superb.
Where we are today is still remarkable given the absolute disaster the club was in following Caixinha - and that’s largely down to gerrard - so even if he underperforms this season I think he’ll learn a lot from it and deserves another go.
(Of course if we come lower than 2nd in the league and exit early in both cups then it would be a different matter)
If we do not do anything more than last year it will be a failure keeping him another year is rewarding failure that’s why I think he should go, Warburton went and he won a scottish cup.
Warburton didn’t win the Scottish cup.
I meant challenge cup but he did beat Celtic in the semi.
I was a fan of Warburton though - he did really well to bring us up another few levels - and I’d have kept him longer personally.
However what gerrard has achieved is on a different level again - up to 2nd in Scotland and competing in the europa league group stages two years in a row - it’s a big step up.
I am not denying his achievements one bit, in fact if you look at my initial post I have praised him for the work he has done, however I will say it again, if we stand still and finish 2nd this year, don’t win any cups and fail to progress in Europe after christmas it will be a failure and I don’t want failure rewarded. Warburton won the league. knocked out Cetic in the semi final and won a cup, he could not do anything in Europe as we had not qualified, he was also not given the money that SG got and was there less than two years he went because of one reason, failure, we had fallen 19 points behind Celtic, SG should not be treated any differently.
Why’s that? Are we here to mandate consistent treatment of managers or to mandate success?
Even if the club stands still in terms of number of trophies won, looking at the big picture we are on an entirely different footing to when Gerrard took over. Assuming the club closes that gap a bit further with Celtic it would not be rewarding failure to keep going with gerrard, it would be a welcome long term perspective to help him continue to embed his philosophy on the team and go on to win trophies in his third term hopefully.
This is all conjecture though, so pointless, at this stage he’s taken the club forward massively and we’re hopefully in for a trophy or two over the next 9 months!
Some things he has done well some he has not, as stated earlier a lot of his signings have been poor. Three of our most consistent and best players Morelos, Jack and Tav were there before he came in. Domestically we have won nothing if it happens again this year especially after spending over 11 million questions will be asked about his qualities in doing his job properly. In any walk of life if you cannot do your job you will initially be given help advice and maybe better tools or some more training if no progress is made you will probably be told to leave. According to Wikipedia since 1967 we have had 25 managers only 8 have been there more than 3 years. Gerrard should in my opinion go if he cannot do his job in other words improve on last years progress.
That’s simply wrong - are you really a Rangers fan? Despite the last decade we’ve still only had 17 managers since the club was founded 150 odd years ago - slightly better ratio don’t you think?
Its not wrong do you want me to cut and paste them all in for you you can check here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rangers_F.C._managers
Please - that list includes caretaker managers who were in charge for a matter of days in most cases - talk about spin
In my previous post I said 25 since 1967 only eight of them were caretakers and that was only from 1967 so sorry not in “most cases” going by my maths it would need to be half of 25 which would be at least 12. Oh and yes I am a rangers supporter is that the personal jibes starting again? Getting back to the point if he fails I think he should go, if you don’t fine.