“Rookie error” – how Stevie must learn from this big mistake…

So with Steven Gerrard’s recent admission about Eros Grezda, Borna Barisic and Kyle Lafferty, strongly hinting he’s not happy with the three of them and that the trio may well be on their ways out this coming summer, we have to look at the manager himself.

And, for that matter, Rangers’ scouting network.

So much hype has been made over Director of Football Mark Allen and Chief Scout Andy Scoulding, plus Gerrard himself, when these guys eventually formed Rangers’ management team, that it’s only fair to call out what a complete disaster those three recruits were.

Let’s not be unfair. Allen and Scoulding were a major reason we secured Scott Arfield and Allan McGregor, plus while Connor Goldson has not quite been Carlos Cuellar he’s been reasonably good.

These were all signings sanctioned by, approved by and in places initiated by the manager as well as aforementioned pair, so we must give credit where it’s due.

Unfortunately, Gerrard is pretty much squarely responsible for the mistakes that were Barisic and Lafferty, not to mention the farce that has been Eros Grezda.

Gerrard had a modest budget – around £10M. With that cash he has effectively wasted £5M on three wastes of salaries, players who simply haven’t delivered – and he has to be called on that just like Pedro was on the hideous Hispanics who engulfed our club last season.

Goldson we can’t really say is truly value for money – he’s been fairly good, no more, but not £3M worth, while Jamie Murphy was no one’s fault but has again been a waste of cash given how it’s turned out.

Indeed, the only money we could argue that Gerrard truly used well was £50,000 on Glen Kamara and the £2M on Nikola Katic. It’s not the best return really.

In Stevie’s favour he’s a rookie boss who will make errors. And unfortunately last summer he made quite a few costly ones.

And the farce of Grezda? How could Gerrard willingly sign a player (and spend £2M on him) who was clearly injured? Injured a year ago, he wasn’t even able to face us – rumours abound that Barisic heavily recommended his former team mate, but then Gerrard didn’t have to listen. He pulled the trigger on that risky move and it’s been a complete joke.

For all that is good at Ibrox at this precise moment in terms of form and players in the XI delivering, this is a definite blot and we must be honest about it.