Challenging Steven Gerrard

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Challenging Steven Gerrard


So after the dust has settled (football-wise) on another Old Firm clash, we at Ibrox Noise want to take a look again at the manager. We’ve covered Alfredo’s indiscretions to death, while also discussing the weaknesses of the playing squad, of which there are many, but after yet another Old Firm defeat, Gerrard’s management must now rightly be scrutinised.

Others don’t – in the eyes of the majority of Rangers’ support, he can do no wrong and anyone saying differently is out of order. In short, to the lion’s share, In Gerrard We Trust and Give Him Time. Sound familiar?

That’s fair enough, it’s their opinion, but as one of Ibrox Noise’s very own said recently, if Steven Gerrard wasn’t who he is, didn’t have the playing career he’s had, he’d have been fired by now – and we can prove it. More on that later.

Of course, looking at the face of it, we’re second place and still a comfortable six points ahead of Aberdeen. That seems like progress, and given all the third-place finishes of recent seasons, it’s a reasonable assertion to make.

But as we alluded to on the site, dig a little deeper and focus on actual performance and the numbers, and the picture is grim.

Gerrard’s win rate, in all competitions, is now significantly below half. In league alone it’s 55% (17w of 31 rounded up), which is 5% higher than Mark Warburton [spl] who had no budget at all (12w of 24), but exactly the same as Pedro Caixinha (11 of 20) whose budget was identical.

Having both Pedro Caixinha and Steven Gerrard spend £10M+ has yielded more or less the same results in the league. Gerrard’s big advantage is Europe and that win in December over Celtic – otherwise it’s honours even.

Just like Caixinha, and Warburton, Gerrard has his favourite players he sticks to come hell or high water – Goldson, Tavernier, Worrall and Morelos are among them, and he stubbornly refuses to shift from them. Meanwhile, more stubbornly yet, are the players who deserve and deserved a chance. Jason Cummings, Greg Docherty, Ryan Hardie, Nikola Katic, Ross McCrorie, Lee Wallace and quite a few others either got axed, loaned out or live on the bench regardless of their form or ability.

In Gerrard’s favour his Europa League run was staggering, and was the highlight, along with the Celtic win, of this season – but you can’t live on the past – you must keep progressing, or at least never regressing, and Gerrard’s Rangers haven’t won since February 27th.

March 2019 joins the dubious collection of rare months Rangers have failed to win in at all throughout our long and proud history, with four attempts at picking up three points all failing.

Fans have turned on players – the likes of Ryan Jack, Connor Goldson, James Tavernier, Joe Worrall and Alfredo Morelos, for right or for wrong, have all come under fire, with frequent arguments that we need better personnel.

True, we do – but a £10M budget is still far in excess of Aberdeen, Hibs and Killie yet Rangers frequently struggle against sides of their level. Yes, league position is the one that counts, but it takes more than a touch of the gloss away when despite being above Aberdeen and Killie, we keep on losing or drawing with them when we play them.

Rangers should have enough in our tank to overcome these sides more often than not (Even Walter had bad results now and then against the more modest SPL sides so we’re not being ridiculous about it) but it seems like something just isn’t gelling.

The brutal hard numbers come down to the league win rate – that’s how all Rangers managers are measured – and Gerrard is no better than Pedro Caixinha. Those are simple facts and Caixinha got fired for this level of incompetence – and that’s the proof we mentioned earlier.

A key response from Gerrard’s biggest backers (which is the majority, frankly) is he needs time and will learn, and deserves our support. Surely 1: Rangers is not the place to cut your managerial teeth at, and 2: when your manager keeps doing things you disagree with, to the team’s cost, surely you’re allowed to question that?

As we said before, we’re seeing the same fan patterns with Rangers managers surfacing all over again – every manager seems to get an unquestioning loyalty from many supporters, who then castigate the ones who dare to raise queries as ‘Celtic fans’. It happened with Warburton, Pedro, even Murty and now it’s happening with Gerrard.

Our manager has shown no real sign this season of truly being the right manager for Rangers. He’s flirted with competence and even started looking convincing, but the numbers don’t lie.

Such as league wise Gerrard L5, Warburton L5 and Pedro L4.

If you can scream and foam and gnash your fangs and tell us we’re scum for saying these factual things, but that’s what they are – facts. Bear in mind while Rangers finished third the season of Warburton, he actually left us in second place.

So, you’re reading asking us ‘what do we suggest then’? Maybe that will be the next entry…

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15 COMMENTS

  1. Clearly the Board have blundered with the appointment of previous managers and we will likely be lumbered with our rookie manager again next season.

    Let’s hope be learns from his undoubted mistakes this season. Unsure we can afford another baron season, with them on “9 in a row”, mind the post-mortems on this website!

  2. None of the previous managers laid a glove on celtic & I'd argue that with 20 players in & out in summer our biggest issue was always inconsistency. So what do we do tear it all up & start again id say no. Gerrard deserves next season & the 2 transfer windows that will come & then see where we are.

  3. I won't argue with your stats. In my opinion he has done better than the previous managers. Sometimes we expect to much winning the league was never on the agenda a cup yes.

    Ranger's are a great team but we are not the best team yet, but it will come.Pay attention to what is happening in the background the club is bringing in the best coaches best young players for the academy.facilities have improved their as well. Playing in more cups and better class teams than in Scotland .
    We now have a scouting network DOF newly appointed Commercial manager all this in just this season.

    Until we leave this diddy league which you have to agree is SHITE no ifs and buts its mince as are the people that run it.
    Stevie G has my full support yes I have questioned some of his choices and funnily enough morelos and Tav are often on my lips.
    Let's stop griping and support the club, the manager and the board we are heading in the right direction.

    My final piece is let's lose the sectarian bile, it's ancient history To hear some of the bile coming out of the mouths of the neanderthal knuckle daggers who allegedly support our club is embarrassing in this day and age. Half our team are probably Catholic, so what!! We all come into the world the same way and we all go out the same way in a box.

    A true blue supporter.

  4. Remember Steven was not a manager before he came to Rangers
    But we as fans accepted that
    We cant compare his stats to any other managers before at the moment
    He must be given at least one more season to prove himself here at Rangers
    Hes just in the door and its a four year deal remember
    Players are underperforming and playing with 10 men
    There's still a lot to do here
    NO SURRENDER

    • What if the players aren't under performing and just poor players. As IN said the stats this season are no better than previous seasons or worse. So are the players under performing? Or just poor? With a couple of exceptions SG has signed them all. So is it his coaching that's wrong? Morelos had no red cards last season. This season 5. Defoe, worral,Davies. All on big wages and contributing zilch. A lot of questions need to be asked of SG as well as the players. Not to mention the board who jave bankrolled all of this. Discuss

  5. Problem, G has let himself down by trying to play the media, wonder what he actually says to the players, whatever it is, it is not working Mr G. For example:

    He clearly likes Tav, but he continually defends poorly when his team needs him to defend well.
    While it is great to see a hard working, difficult to beat team, the players lose the plot which Mr G appears to like, fine until you find you are spending most of the time making excuses instead of talking about the plus points.

    Yesterday, great second half in the circumstances, we could have won the game, but we lost the plot, the look of anger on some players (while possibly understandable) proved how poor our standards are in the pits with Mr G. I can rhyme of 3 players excluding Morelas who ended up headless chickens J

  6. If we are going to look at statistics for the season, then we have to look at all the statistics which include the European Campaign. Otherwise we are being selective in using statistics to prove a point, rather than a complete objective analysis of the season.

    For some reason, an element of supporters seemed to expect that Rangers would challenge Celtic this season. That is simply fantasy stuff, based on the comparative positions of the two clubs at the present time. Stevie Gerrard is a rookie manager, but he has factually done better than the recent previous managers over the season.

    Is Stevie G our ideal manager? Absolutely not, but the reason we have him as our manager is because we are unable to attract the quality of manager who we used to attract in the past. That's because we are not, in performance and financial terms, at the kind of level we were at in the past. Rangers are not nearly as attractive a proposition as we were when we attracted Graeme Souness or Dick Advocaat.

    No club has ever achieved success by continually sacking managers, so the board NEED to give a manager time and support to help rebuild Rangers. Rebuilding is way longer than one season, and given that progress has been made then SG has earned the right, in my opinion, to at least one more season.

    • Alan, we’ve just demonstrated through hard numbers that Stevie is on a par with Pedro. He can’t live off the European run and win over Celtic forever.

  7. Gerrard will get us the title next season! Off load the dross & loaness in the summer, of load that clown Morelos & use the money to bring in a quality number 10 who can score goals & unlock packed defences! Our biggest problem this season has been every team we play bar the filth Park the bus & treat games against us like its the world cup final!! They give every last drop of blood, sweat & tears they have to get a result against us! With a few very good signings in the summer we will get it right! We need a solid CB who can lead from the back, a goal scoring MF as I mentioned above & someone to replace Morales!….now I've had doubts about Gerrard at times, esp the past few months, but he is a rookie & has been regularly let down by certain players! I saw a change in Gerrard yesterday! He changed the tactics at half time & we where minutes away from taking something from a game that many had written off by half time, one slack pass by our captain gifted the scum the chance they needed. We had them on the back foot & God only knows how we didn't get a 2nd…as for our captain, like Lee Wallace before him, he is not a leader! We need to go & throw the armband on young Ross McCrorie, he is a die hard Gers man & a MF battler….it worked with Ferguson, so why not build our team around a young talent! As much as I love most of your articles Ibrox noise, I disagree with this post, Gerrard has improved on Pedro, & I honestly think Gerrard will get the job done next year! The filth are for the taking, now let's keep the fans together & get behind the manager & team & March forward!! Mon the Gers

  8. I disagree with the Pedro comparisons yes on bare stats definitely no on performance and watch ability ! I think Steven Gerrard will have learned a lot this season as will his fellow coaches and advisors . We are not far away from being a proper team with good young players …we need to hold our nerve I hope Ginger Rat gets the job at the Midden Gerrard has the beating of him for sure . Bring on Next Season

  9. So what ur sayin is SG in his 1st managerial job is as good as PC who has managed a lot longer and won trophies. I know who i'd rather have out those 2. SG every day of the week

  10. Wishful thinking Gerrard can win us the title, he might talk a good game, lets us hear what we want to hear, but he keeps getting it wrong time after time, shades of Ped and Warb mixed into one. He was a great high profile purchase, but it isn't working, change it now, if we don't we will be staring at and probably listening to 10 in a row for years to come!! J

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