Stevie absolutely slams his Rangers men – pulls no punches

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Stevie absolutely slams his Rangers men – pulls no punches
Football - 2021 / 2022 UEFA Europa League - Qualifying - 1st Leg - Glasgow Rangers vs Alashkert - Ibrox Stadium Rangers manager Steven Gerrard PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxUK

Steven Gerrard, generally pretty honest with his assessment of his team, has acknowledged, loosely, the side is in a spot of bother after commanding them to ‘wake up’ following yet another pretty poor performance at home to Armenian minnows Alashkert.

While some fans are pretending all is well and ‘in Stevie we trust’ and all that, the manager is dispensing with niceties and confirming the displays are effectively garbage and there’s a real lack of quality and effort.

Bear in mind we’re now a measurable level of distance into the season, having had six competitive matches, and they’ve all been a varying level of poor. And Steven Gerrard appears already completely fed up with it.

He said:

“We need to wake up now. We’re in competitions and we’re at a club where you can’t afford to be where we are right now. We need to find our level and we need to wake up right now. We should have made this game so much more comfortable than we have. We’ve only got ourselves to blame. It was way beyond tactics in the first half. Before you kick a ball or worry about tactics, you’ve got to show fight, desire and heart. You’ve got to be committed. You’ve got to run through walls. You’ve got to show these fans here that you’re prepared to be all in. The first half performance was so far away from where I wanted it to be.”

Pulling no punches whatsoever.

He has rather politely labelled his squad’s effort, quality and energy as absolutely disgraceful, and while a few of them did manage pass marks (Aribo, Wright, Hagi, Bassey) last night, on the whole the display was the same old tripe we’ve been sitting through for as long as we can remember.

Bear in mind, the post-new year lull last season wasn’t that different to what we’re seeing now, but the first half of the season had been so mind-bogglingly good that even indifferent form in 2021 didn’t matter too much.

But now it does, because instead of the slogs still grafting us out the wins, we only have 3 wins of 6 and we’re being, frankly, at present, found out.

Is it the return of fans? Is it a squad that punched above its weight last season? Has the dressing room stopped playing for their manager? Is Gerrard himself guilty of sticking by his pals and not giving places to form players?

We don’t know right now. Possibly a combination of all of these. Maybe none.

What we definitely know is this is a worryingly dramatic return to the kind of form we were seeing under previous bad managers like Pedro and Warburton, and while our players are clearly superior, the results simply do not lie.

At present, it’s miles off good enough and our manager is man enough to call it out, and while he’s convinced he’s doing everything in his power to fix it, he’s part responsible too.

It’s gone absolutely sideways recently, and we can only pray the form arrives soon, because otherwise this club has no chance of winning the SPL this season, and we can kiss goodbye to that cherished CL group stage slot.

It’s over to you guys.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Totally down to the manager, not partly. He picks the players who are underperforming whilst ignoring the fringe players who are bustin a gut to get a first team chance. A chance to cash in on a player who should fetch around £10m, without weakening the side? Step forward John Lundstrum.

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