Please read before dismissing!
I've made no bones about my desire for him to be manager, so here, I lay out my case:
Time at Rangers
Gerrard took over at the start of the 2018-19 season. Points differences between Celtic and Rangers over the seasons:
2017-18 - Celtic 12 pts
Gerrard joins
2018-19 - Celtic 9 pts
2019-20 - Celtic 13 pts* (having played 1 game fewer)
2020-21 - Rangers 20 pts ahead with 3 games to go
Furthermore, in the few years before he joined, these had been some of the results in the Old Firm:
Celtic 5-0 Rangers
Celtic 4-0 Rangers
Rangers 1-5 Celtic
Celtic 5-1 Rangers
Since he joined, Rangers' heaviest defeat to Celtic has been 2-0. His record v Celtic has been:
P 11
W 6
D 1
L 4
Put simply, he has taken a club that had developed a massive inferiority complex v their rivals to getting the better of them, beating them in games and beating them to the title.
Furthermore, he took Rangers into the last 16 of the EL. Neither Celtic nor Rangers usually gets out of the group stage.
Outsized Impact as a Player
Gerrard won almost every trophy going in his career, despite not being as lucky as Lampard - or other players with whom he is often compared - to be surrounded by other world class players for most of it.
2005 CL final - scores the crucial goal v Olympiakos; scores 2 in the final to get Lpool over the line
2006 FA Cup final - scores 2 worldies, including one in injury time, to drag the game into ET and eventually pens; he scores his pen (of course) in the shootout. Lpool win the FA Cup
2007 CL SF - scores in the shootout
2008 CL QF - scores a late penalty to knock out Woolwich
2009 PL - the main engine behind Lpool's first title challenge in years
2014 PL - will always be remembered for the slip, but without him, Lpool would not have been close.
In the Gerrard v Lampard v Scholes debate, it is Gerrard 10/10 for me.
Put is this way, if you replace Lampard with Gerrard in that Chelsea team from 2005 to 15, do Chelsea win just as many, if not more, trophies? YES.
If you replace Scholes with Gerrard in the Man U team from 2000 to 2012, do United win just as many, if not more, trophies? YES
If you replace Gerrard with Scholes or Lampard from 2001 to 2015, do Liverpool win as many trophies? NO
The greats of football lift those around them to heights thought impossible (it's why Maradona will always, always, always be regarded more highly, especially in Argentina, than Messi), and Gerrard is one such football great.
Ruthlessness
Our club is full of babies. As per the Athletic article: they moaned that Mourinho didn't train them hard enough; they moaned that Poch trained them too hard.
They've seen off the best manager in our modern history and a manager, whatever his flaws, who won a title as recently as 6 years ago and a European trophy just 4 years ago.
Many things need to change at the club, and the players are one of them, and I believe Gerrard wouldn't tolerate losers and babies like Rose, Winks and Dele, and he'd look to move on trash like Sissoko, Aurier, Sanchez and Davies.
Look at him here from 7:44:
This was in his first few months at Rangers. He set the tone and the standard, and although at the time, some said he was a bull in a china shop... who questions him now?
---
So, that's my case in a nutshell.
tl;dr we need a winner who will change the mentality of the club, and I believe Steve Gerrard is the man.
I've made no bones about my desire for him to be manager, so here, I lay out my case:
Time at Rangers
Gerrard took over at the start of the 2018-19 season. Points differences between Celtic and Rangers over the seasons:
2017-18 - Celtic 12 pts
Gerrard joins
2018-19 - Celtic 9 pts
2019-20 - Celtic 13 pts* (having played 1 game fewer)
2020-21 - Rangers 20 pts ahead with 3 games to go
Furthermore, in the few years before he joined, these had been some of the results in the Old Firm:
Celtic 5-0 Rangers
Celtic 4-0 Rangers
Rangers 1-5 Celtic
Celtic 5-1 Rangers
Since he joined, Rangers' heaviest defeat to Celtic has been 2-0. His record v Celtic has been:
P 11
W 6
D 1
L 4
Put simply, he has taken a club that had developed a massive inferiority complex v their rivals to getting the better of them, beating them in games and beating them to the title.
Furthermore, he took Rangers into the last 16 of the EL. Neither Celtic nor Rangers usually gets out of the group stage.
Outsized Impact as a Player
Gerrard won almost every trophy going in his career, despite not being as lucky as Lampard - or other players with whom he is often compared - to be surrounded by other world class players for most of it.
2005 CL final - scores the crucial goal v Olympiakos; scores 2 in the final to get Lpool over the line
2006 FA Cup final - scores 2 worldies, including one in injury time, to drag the game into ET and eventually pens; he scores his pen (of course) in the shootout. Lpool win the FA Cup
2007 CL SF - scores in the shootout
2008 CL QF - scores a late penalty to knock out Woolwich
2009 PL - the main engine behind Lpool's first title challenge in years
2014 PL - will always be remembered for the slip, but without him, Lpool would not have been close.
In the Gerrard v Lampard v Scholes debate, it is Gerrard 10/10 for me.
Put is this way, if you replace Lampard with Gerrard in that Chelsea team from 2005 to 15, do Chelsea win just as many, if not more, trophies? YES.
If you replace Scholes with Gerrard in the Man U team from 2000 to 2012, do United win just as many, if not more, trophies? YES
If you replace Gerrard with Scholes or Lampard from 2001 to 2015, do Liverpool win as many trophies? NO
The greats of football lift those around them to heights thought impossible (it's why Maradona will always, always, always be regarded more highly, especially in Argentina, than Messi), and Gerrard is one such football great.
Ruthlessness
Our club is full of babies. As per the Athletic article: they moaned that Mourinho didn't train them hard enough; they moaned that Poch trained them too hard.
They've seen off the best manager in our modern history and a manager, whatever his flaws, who won a title as recently as 6 years ago and a European trophy just 4 years ago.
Many things need to change at the club, and the players are one of them, and I believe Gerrard wouldn't tolerate losers and babies like Rose, Winks and Dele, and he'd look to move on trash like Sissoko, Aurier, Sanchez and Davies.
Look at him here from 7:44:
This was in his first few months at Rangers. He set the tone and the standard, and although at the time, some said he was a bull in a china shop... who questions him now?
---
So, that's my case in a nutshell.
tl;dr we need a winner who will change the mentality of the club, and I believe Steve Gerrard is the man.
