Hypocrisy from Steven Gerrard as Kent loses a month

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Hypocrisy from Steven Gerrard as Kent loses a month


WARNING: anyone expecting fluffy optimism and blind support of the manager should walk away from this article to avoid offence.

For the rest:

As we forewarned several times to occasionally arrogant disagreement, Livingston today proved stuffy and difficult opponents who could even consider themselves unfortunate not to take a point away from Ibrox on an afternoon of yet another horrific performance from the men in blue.

We’ll dissect all this over the coming days, but the overriding shock was the staggering and misguided risk of starting Ryan Kent, who hadn’t had first-team football since early July, and the absolutely heartbreaking sight of his breaking down in tears on 43 minutes.

Whatever else we have to say about this match, and there’s a lot, that one is on Steven Gerrard’s head and no one else.

How staggeringly two-faced of our manager to attack Steve Clarke, rightly, over the NT’s careless handling of Ryan Jack, then himself start a player who’s had no football in two months, a player whose game relies on pressure on the legs more than most.

Kent, coming in from the cold, was obviously bursting to start, and his effort levels were sky high, but his body was NOT ready for that. And he got 43 minutes before his hamstring was pulled and now we lose our best player for up to a month.

All because of a poor, and naïve decision on the part of Gerrard to play him.

Fuming doesn’t cover how we feel about all this, so if our opinion is too emotional for you, so be it.

We’ll probably get dog’s abuse from our readers for criticism of the man, but he’s made two absolutely massive blunders two matches in a row – first was the shambolic management against Celtic, second was yet another bizarre XI featuring a player who wasn’t ready to start.

Maybe a cameo late on, to get him up to some sort of speed, but given Gerrard’s past remarks about getting players up to speed to justify leaving them benched, this was just hypocrisy.

We know he loves Kent, we know how good Kent is. But Steven Gerrard’s poor decision-making has now cost Rangers our most valuable player for around four weeks.

He’ll probably wish he hadn’t smeared Jordan Jones so badly now…

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13 COMMENTS

  1. Sorry, don't agree.
    If someone is not ready for 90 minutes, you have two options, imho
    1) You bring them on at some point in the game and gamble that they can get to the end of the match so you don't have to use a second sub on them
    2) You start with them and take them off when they have had enough.

    If SG had brought Kent on, when? 70 minutes? Only gives him 20 minutes to show if he is ready for Feyenoord, not enough time.
    60 minutes? 30 minutes is enough time to do your hamstring, but not enough to show you are ready for a big game.
    Halftime? What if he can't last the second 45?
    I do not claim to be an expert, but logically I would start with someone, hope that they can tell if body is not working right, get to halftime and see how they are. If they are OK, give them 15 second half minutes then off.
    I feel your suggestion doesn't give SG enough information to work on. It is very bad luck, but I think he made the right call, based on a lot more football knowledge than you or I.
    I do agree his tactics in the OF game were wrong, though

    • I don't follow your logic at all. If someone is 100% match sharp 20 mins is plenty. Number of minutes don't really matter. If a player has that certain something and are ready to go you can see it. Maybe can't explain it but you can see it. And in any case, having a good performance against Livi-anti-football counts F all for showing if you're ready for European competition. I mean come on Livi are used to playing on a pitch of the same quality as my six year old child plays on. Feunoord they are not.

      However I do agree that it might just have been pure dumb bad luck, and nothing to do with the fact that he spent the summer training alone.

  2. Poor decision but then having played football when someone trains every day he should
    Last at least half a game so I doubt he has kept himself in shape maybe he should have played a couple of reserve games then everyone would have slagged manager for not playing him difficult decision

  3. Everybody wanted to see Kent, but in hindsight, it wasn't the greatest decision, to play him. Brandon Barker done exceptionally well and can cover, so not the end of the world.

  4. only just home…could not agree more with you…thank goodness you,re not afraid to speak the truth ibrox noise…the man is making mistake after mistake IMO so showing his lack of top managerial experience…dont get me wrong,he is the right man for the job and i love his determination to do great things for our great club…Our walter would never have started the laddie…he would have been on the bench till 60 mins.because by then the game might have been won…SG,s fitness advisors must have said something and gerrard has ignored them…maybe that,s one of the reasons the D.O.F. resigned…anyway i hope i haven,t offended anyone…WATP

  5. Im not someone who expects blind support for the manager, i've still not forgiven him for the Seperate Entity game. Still disgusted by that!! But i think this is a bit harsh. If you have big player whos fit enough to give you 30, 60, 70 mins or a "cameo" then I would rather they done it at the start of the game and set the tone for us. If your fit enough for the bench then your fit enough to start. Its an injury, can happen to anyone at anytime. Lets hope hes back STARTING very soon.

  6. Totally agree with IN opinion in this case. The players are tested and measured and the staff and player himself will have known if he was fit or not. But chose to play him anyway. Stevie's love of Ryan and the magic PR story it would have been for him to come on and score or create some goals would have been too tempting to ignore.

    I can see why they did it, although wouldn't have done it myself.

    This does not come down to "football knowledge". It's sports science and Kent has had weeks of training at lower level than he needs and was dropped in at the deep end. Training successfully alone is a fallacy for all but the most incredibly motivated athletes. Almost everyone needs a coach to push them or a training buddy to compete with to keep them trying 100%. Without that, standards drop. Not necessarily the lads fault but hard to avoid.(unless you count spitting the dummy and refusing to train with the Liverpool unders team as his fault-but that might be unkind of me).

    On the other hand, maybe he was totally fit and had a freak injury. They do happen.

  7. And another thing. I'm fecking sick of this "our gaffer has forgotten more about football than we'll ever know so don't question him, just trust him blindly" pish.

    Just because you're a playing legend doesn't mean you can manage. And as such Stevie should be held to the exact same standards as any other man. To do otherwise is a disservice to the club. Managers come and go, clubs stay.

    Diego Maradonna, Alan Shearer, Gary Neville, Gazza, John Barnes(LoL best East end manager ever!). Cracking players, atrocious managers.

  8. He had a pretty good pre season with Liverpool he came on a run for 40 odd minutes looked fit then had a moment. Hamstrings can go at anytime, the amount of gametime someone plays doesn't suggest when it should go or not go. He's the best winger we've got, he was fit to play, and he needs gametime. The manager was right to start him. Kent was unfortunate just.

  9. Get a grip of yersel. SG tries a different strategy against timmy and gets slaughtered. Warburton didn't try different strategies and got slaughtered.

    SG puts a 22yo who has been frothing for first team action and played most of last year on and gets slaughtered. Any money if he had started with Barker on the left you would be greeting that SG was incompetent because he didnt play our new 7M winger.

    Guy cant win. I really like IN but you are getting increasingly anxious and reactionary. Would you rather bring back Warbs or Caxihina? Let the man learn his job rather than stoke discontent. The only way forward is a settled management and playing staff. People bitching about minor things is distracting at best and disruptive at worst.

  10. I have another angle and don't give about the abuse etc. I agree with lots of IN in SG and RK. But would rather that Middleton and McCrorie and McPake and Docherty and King and Barker etc were utilised Even Murphy.
    Before spending £7m in an overloaded midfeild and winfr scenario

    BUY A FAR KING LEFT BACK.

    Was the departure of the DOF a follow up to the poor purchases! But to mention bit using the same players winning youth tournaments

  11. I have to agree whole heartedly he should not have started how many times has sg said there not ready as they haven't had game time so there benched and as far as the old firm debacle proves how naive he is and then to take absolutely no responsibility for it n throw players under the bus shameful I loved stevie as a player but quickly falling out of love with his poor decisions and lack of accepting responsibility for them could accept that but the arrogance the last two weeks of the man has soured it for me sorry but just my humble opinion

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