Steven Gerrard and those ‘crass’ comments…

Watching the media reaction to Steven Gerrard’s post-match interview yesterday has been, frankly, comedy gold.

Gerrard, rightly, stated the absolute facts that Rangers were the better team by far yesterday afternoon and a class above their opponents.

This was truly Souness-esque arrogance at its best and every fan to a man woman and child loved it – Gerrard defended us, he defended his men, and he stated the beliefs we have – we should be a class above Aberdeen – pretty much always have been, always will be, 80s respite notwithstanding. Even the guff Pedro teams were able to beat Aberdeen, despite them being the ‘best of the rest’ in Scotland.

Once we got our act sorted, it was only a matter of time before the traditional superiority appeared on the pitch formally again.

Yesterday it did. Rangers destroyed Aberdeen, held their forehead a mile away as the Dons struggled to muster any threat at all. A lax piece of defending and the one sole piece of quality they’d produced the whole 96 (6, really?) minutes stole them the point, but anyone who disputed Gerrard’s words was watching a different match to the rest of us.

There were complaints too about ‘everything goes against Rangers’ – well it’s about flipping time a Rangers manager said it.

See, the difference between Gerrard and the rest is Gerrard’s judgement within football has never been called into question. He’s a respected icon of the game, one of the best British players over the past 20 years, and so when even he calls the anti-Rangers sentiment in Scotland for what it is, Scotland falls all over itself to be offended.

It’s not a nobody like Pedro or Warburton saying it – it’s Steven Gerrard. Suddenly those words carry more weight because he’s an outsider – in time we hope he’ll fully become one of us, if he hasn’t already, but initially he was neutral. And if he has the guts to call this out, it’s less easily dismissed.

Remember when Scottish football went insane over Brendan Rodgers’ comments about the pitch at Tynecastle? When he whined about their ‘gamesmanship’? No, of course you don’t, because it didn’t.

But when Rangers make a complaint, it’s a different story.

Gerrard is starting to truly walk the walk now – he talked a lot, but the results, performances and rhetoric now is just starting to look a tad Rangers esque. The Journey is nowhere near finished, but it’s further along than it’s been since 2012.