We hear this a lot, more when things go badly than when things go well, in truth.
And we understand it – it’s football, based on faith – we want to believe our manager is doing the right thing so we support him.
The problem is, when we referred to ‘our manager’, it’s applied unconditionally since Warburton came in, with many Rangers fans finding themselves blindly putting every inch of truth in the boss, be it Bread Man, Pedro, Murty or indeed Stevie, in a way that rejects form, rejects results, and puts nothing but unwavering belief that the manager, whoever he is, is the right man.
Which is not to say Steven Gerrard isn’t – but with us now deep into the second season of his time at Ibrox, he’s well past the ‘rookie’ manager status, and is now someone tasked with responsibility.
He no longer has the slack of ‘learning on the job’ because he’s done so in his rookie year.
Now it gets serious, but after an incredibly promising first half of the season culminating in an astonishing win at Parkhead, it’s unravelled dramatically quickly.
And we can already hear ‘give the manager your support’ creaking in from the above sentence, as if 5 dropped points of 9 doesn’t really matter.
Unfortunately, it does.
We asked before the start of this season if stopping 9IAR was critical – the answer from our readers was yes.
And it is now, in a manner of four league matches, looking astonishingly far away given where we were at 3PM on the 29th of December.
Rangers’ form is currently abject, with a multitude of reasons as to why, and just like last year when the new year saw the side fall to pieces, the worryingly similar patterns have appeared again of an exact duplicate.
Stevie put that all down to the postponed Cowdenbeath tie – every inch of it. This time there’s been no excuses.
It quite simply hasn’t been good enough, and much of that blame lies with the boss, whose post-match quotes sounded helpless and clueless.
Don’t get us wrong, the players are dire too right now, but for all the credit we gave Gerrard for December, and we gave him a LOT of it, he must also take the flak for the fact almost every player out there is underperforming now.
The workrate isn’t right, the tactics are a mess, and the players look clueless – just like, right now, their manager.
Does this mean we stop supporting Gerrard?
No – but it means we’re allowed to question his ability to win the league.
Has he improved this team – yes, no doubt about that. Only a fool would ignore those wins v Celtic and the European adventures.
But just like 12 months ago, it’s quickly unravelled around January/February and there’s been nothing to blame it on this time.
We are very concerned right now, to say the least. Many fans have already conceded the league title.
And at this moment, we’d have to say winning it from here would be a staggering achievement.