There is no legitimate case for sacking Steven Gerrard

It would appear getting into the group stages is your only hand. And let's just clear things up here. How many games in European competition this season did we actually win?

European football doesn't work like that, obviously. We win the first leg then we don't need to win the 2nd game - it's about progressing to that next round.

What it did indicate was that SG was able to put a team together that defended well, was disciplined and kept shape. Something we have lacked in recent times.
 
Being totally negative, we had the easiest possible draw for Europe and our 3 group opponents all sacked their managers. Domestically, the Tims have been surprisingly poor and have a failed Hibs and Bolton manager in charge instead of Rodgers.

Come on, why the continual need to put down the Euro run. It wasn't "the easiest possible draw".

As far as I'm aware, Celtic are on the same points total as they were this time last season.They've scored more and conceded less, though.
 
European football doesn't work like that, obviously. We win the first leg then we don't need to win the 2nd game - it's about progressing to that next round.

What it did indicate was that SG was able to put a team together that defended well, was disciplined and kept shape. Something we have lacked in recent times.

McLeish won 1 game from 6 in the Champions League group stage. We made the last 16 that year.

Walter won 2 games from 8 games in 4 rounds of the UEFA Cup. It didn't stop us getting to the final.

Where Gerrard got us in Europe this season is a miracle. We had absolutely no right being there.

And see this easy draw pish ? Villarreal just gubbed Zenit home and away. That's a Zenit team who spent £120m in the past 18 months.
 
Come on, why the continual need to put down the Euro run. It wasn't "the easiest possible draw".

As far as I'm aware, Celtic are on the same points total as they were this time last season.They've scored more and conceded less, though.

Given the possibilities, every member on this board would have snapped your hand off for those 4 qualifying opponents. We were very lucky.

You can’t say your Europa expectations without knowing the opponents. And once you know the opponents, qualifying isn’t that much of an unrealistic expectation.
 
Given the possibilities, every member on this board would have snapped your hand off for those 4 qualifying opponents. We were very lucky.

You can’t say your Europa expectations without knowing the opponents. And once you know the opponents, qualifying isn’t that much of an unrealistic expectation.

I presume you knew Maribor. The team that had defeated us previously, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibs...

After crashing out to the 4th best team in Luxembourg only 12 months before, I fail to see why there would be any genuine confidence about a European run.

It's just typical FF, though. Good for you.
 
I presume you knew Maribor. The team that had defeated us previously, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibs...

After crashing out to the 4th best team in Luxembourg only 12 months before, I fail to see why there would be any genuine confidence about a European run.

It's just typical FF, though. Good for you.

And who drew with Sevilla and Spartak Moscow in the Champions League last season.

Osijek knocked out PSV Eindhoven last season as well
 
I presume you knew Maribor. The team that had defeated us previously, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibs...

After crashing out to the 4th best team in Luxembourg only 12 months before, I fail to see why there would be any genuine confidence about a European run.

It's just typical FF, though. Good for you.


Drastically failing against a bunch of part-timers from Luxembourg shouldn’t be the benchmark. You can’t just say that’s the standard because it’s haopened, and losing in the first round would have been acceptable just because it happened the year before.

I would have taken Maribor over Inter Milan or any of the other options, yeah. As I say, we majorly outspend all 4 of those clubs..
 
If Rangers lost to Maribor most fans would have understood it and it could have been accepted as one of they things.

Even in a world where you see it as luck (it wasn't) making the Europa league was an excellent achievement - what happened the year before has no influence on that achievement.
 
The posters on here starting threads saying he shouldn’t be sacked are the same posters who were on here saying the previous managers should be even though they had better win percentages. Madness.

I have only ever wanted two Rangers managers sacked both because they were out their depth McCoist and Murty.

You had the audacity to say Morelos hasn't even improved as a player this season mate. Nobody takes you serious on here, you've become a parody to be honest. Sad because you can be a decent poster at times.
 
McLeish won 1 game from 6 in the Champions League group stage. We made the last 16 that year.

Walter won 2 games from 8 games in 4 rounds of the UEFA Cup. It didn't stop us getting to the final.

Where Gerrard got us in Europe this season is a miracle. We had absolutely no right being there.

And see this easy draw pish ? Villarreal just gubbed Zenit home and away. That's a Zenit team who spent £120m in the past 18 months.

The playing down of our European Run is mentally challenged like. It really is.

I can't fathom the playing down of how good that achievement was for this current squad.
 
Given the possibilities, every member on this board would have snapped your hand off for those 4 qualifying opponents. We were very lucky.

You can’t say your Europa expectations without knowing the opponents. And once you know the opponents, qualifying isn’t that much of an unrealistic expectation.
You either are a mentally challenged, or listen to them too much, judging by your posts.
 
The posters on here starting threads saying he shouldn’t be sacked are the same posters who were on here saying the previous managers should be even though they had better win percentages..

HOUSE

Yas, that's me got what I needed in the fucken bullshit reasons Warburton, Pedro and Murty aren't better than Gerrard bingo for today.
 
What were his season's targets? I'd imagine;

- avoid humiliation in Europe/earn as much money as possible. DONE
- beat Celtic. DONE
- a cup final/trophy. FAILED
- finish second in the league. DONE (hopefully)
- improve the value of the squad and the overall football department. DONE

Anything else?

These are the cold hard facts which Dave King will assess - and I'm confident he'll remain 100% behind Gerrard.
 
Morelos has scored 29 goals this season while being assisted by a lot of rubbish outwith the occasional good ball from Tav.

Last season on 2 seperate occasions he went 10 games without scoring.

He is a much improved player this season.

Imagine how good he would be with a decent set of attacking midfielders behind him?

We bought Morelos as a 20 year old striker with potential.

In general most players improve with age.

Morelos had 14 goals from 29 starts last season, this it’s 17 goals from 25 in the league.

It is hardly a transformation, yes he has improved but maybe it’s just because he had a year to settle is a year older, is physically stronger and playing with better players.

We also never played all last season with one up front.
 
What were his season's targets? I'd imagine;

- avoid humiliation in Europe/earn as much money as possible. DONE
- beat Celtic. DONE
- a cup final/trophy. FAILED
- finish second in the league. DONE (hopefully)
- improve the value of the squad and the overall football department. DONE

Anything else?

These are the cold hard facts which Dave King will assess - and I'm confident he'll remain 100% behind Gerrard.

These are logical, reasonable targets which the manager will be based on at the end of the season. Not how many times we beat Hibs, Aberdeen or Killie. We could have 5 more wins against them than we have this season but offset those wins with losses to Dundee, Hamilton and Motherwell. Would the people moaning now be happy then? Of course you wouldn't, it's all about where you finish come the seasons end.
 
Drastically failing against a bunch of part-timers from Luxembourg shouldn’t be the benchmark. You can’t just say that’s the standard because it’s haopened, and losing in the first round would have been acceptable just because it happened the year before.

I would have taken Maribor over Inter Milan or any of the other options, yeah. As I say, we majorly outspend all 4 of those clubs..

For goodness sake, no one is saying it's the benchmark or the standard. It is, though, where we were only 12 months before so naturally it's a relevant reference point.

Inter Milan? They were in the Champions League.
 
You either are a mentally challenged, or listen to them too much, judging by your posts.

Brilliant. I say you can’t set expectations without knowing opponents and you call me a mentally challenged. You’ve got issues. And not just of ‘What Car?’ magazine.
 
The playing down of our European Run is mentally challenged like. It really is.

I can't fathom the playing down of how good that achievement was for this current squad.

Absolute madness IMO.

It's the way he did it as well. Brilliant defensive performance in Maribor. Heroic with 9 men in Ufa. Keeping Villarreal quiet with 10 men at Ibrox.

Gerrard and the players earned every single fúcking penny they got us in Europe this season.
 
To be honest, this thread is redundant as a debate.

The OP got it spot on when he stated the £14m brought in from an unexpected European run and the possible £20m player Gerrard’s helped develop Morelos into.

Add in a club sitting clear in second place with a victory over Timbo into the bargain and as the OP says, I’m pretty sure the board are fairly delighted with the start he’s made.

Everything else is just noise at this stage.
 
For goodness sake, no one is saying it's the benchmark or the standard. It is, though, where we were only 12 months before so naturally it's a relevant reference point.

Inter Milan? They were in the Champions League.

Fair enough, I just don’t think it’s relative when we were all so shocked by it.

Saying we should expect to beat teams we outspend isn’t that controversial.
 
I say this as someone that wants him to stay - I cannot stress that enough.

Thinking about it since the weekend. We are currently at 0 wins in 4, will all likely be 0 in 5 after Mordor followed by 7 of the more difficult games.

If we finish the season with a record like 3/4 wins from 12, how do we sell that? How do we make a case he should survive that and keep a straight face.

I'll be honest I am concerned this is going to get messy by May.
 
Absolute madness IMO.

It's the way he did it as well. Brilliant defensive performance in Maribor. Heroic with 9 men in Ufa. Keeping Villarreal quiet with 10 men at Ibrox.

Gerrard and the players earned every single fúcking penny they got us in Europe this season.

Hand on heart (and I said it on here at the time) I expected to be absolute cannon fodder in our Europa Group. And I wouldn't even have been too critical if we finished bottom with no points given were we came from.

We were a bad decision away in Moscow (Morelos goal wrongly chopped off) from actually qualifying for the last 32. It was an amazing run given our current status.
 
I say this as someone that wants him to stay - I cannot stress that enough.

Thinking about it since the weekend. We are currently at 0 wins in 4, will all likely be 0 in 5 after Mordor followed by 7 of the more difficult games.

If we finish the season with a record like 3/4 wins from 12, how do we sell that? How do we make a case he should survive that and keep a straight face.

I'll be honest I am concerned this is going to get messy by May.

Loads of ways.

Depends on context and IF it even happens for a start but that aside...

We as a club took a conscious decision to appoint a rookie manager, that was OUR boards choice.

if they thought that would be fault free and an easy transition they are naive at best.

if you give someone a 4 year deal in the first job you are surely doing so accepting there is a learning process

IF the season was to play out that way it is on our board to ensure the correct pitch is put out to protect such an end to the season.

Get to the summer and no one will give a %^*&, folks forget loads of things during the summer in football.
 
Hand on heart (and I said it on here at the time) I expected to be absolute cannon fodder in our Europa Group. And I wouldn't even have been too critical if we finished bottom with no points given were we came from.

We were a bad decision away in Moscow (Morelos goal wrongly chopped off) from actually qualifying for the last 32. It was an amazing run given our current status.

Spartak had spent £50m in the previous two years. Villarreal had spent £165m.

We should've been miles away from the pair of them.
 
For goodness sake, no one is saying it's the benchmark or the standard. It is, though, where we were only 12 months before so naturally it's a relevant reference point.

Inter Milan? They were in the Champions League.

Lots of folk on here are though,

Let’s be honest over £10million and 16 new players, the group stages of the Europa League should have been the minimum target, but because we had a freak result the year before people have lower expectations.

If people remember back our previous exit in Europe prior to Progres was to Maribor, we were actually humiliated and pumped out of Europe twice in quick succession that season firstly Malmo then Maribor. Both these were huge shocks particularly Maribor so why is it seen as some great achievement we beat them this season.
 
.
I say this as someone that wants him to stay - I cannot stress that enough.

Thinking about it since the weekend. We are currently at 0 wins in 4, will all likely be 0 in 5 after Mordor followed by 7 of the more difficult games.

If we finish the season with a record like 3/4 wins from 12, how do we sell that? How do we make a case he should survive that and keep a straight face.

I'll be honest I am concerned this is going to get messy by May.

Forget fan opinion, the board will be firmly in his corner even if things continue stumbling towards the finish line.

I think there are valid reasons for what we're seeing now (a combination of fatigue and inexperience) that the board will take into consideration.

He's going nowhere.
 
We were league champions when we lost to Maribor previously... the context of playing them then and this season was clearly different.
 
Spartak had spent £50m in the previous two years. Villarreal had spent £165m.

We should've been miles away from the pair of them.

Leceister winning the league and most recently Man Utd putting out PSG shows money isn’t everything. Going on that logic no one other than celtic should be able to touch us in Scotland.

I am not undermining our European run but we got both them at the right time, both changed manager and were in turmoil. When we were getting the underground to the stadium in Moscow it was actually a Spartak fan who showed us what line to take and stop to get off, he like thousands of others were boycotting their games because of the mess they were in.

That said we never beat either of them.
 
We were league champions when we lost to Maribor previously... the context of playing them then and this season was clearly different.

How far back do you go without this “contex” ?

We could turn it right round and say when we got put out by Progres we were finishing third, yes third in the Scottish Championship (effectively the 15th best team in Scotland) only 3 seasons before. What right did a team who hadn’t played in Europe for over five years and been put out of Europe twice in the same season by minnows, and in fact a team who had one win out of their previous 14 games in Europe over the last 2 seasons we were in Europe, have a divine right to beat anyone, minnows or not.
 
This obsession with their NIAR/TIAR needs to stop.

Who gives a fúck ? We weren't there for half of it. It didn't even matter to the man who invented passing football, why should it matter to you ?

The idea Gerrard should not get the required time because they've won 7 titles before he was on the scene is just staggering to me.
Agreed.

We are defined by OUR successes, not by what the bheasts do.

Their day of reckoning is coming, both in football and in the courts, this will bring the entire house of cards tumbling down on all fronts, from their team, to their support, to their placemen who manage to not see any infringements by their players while citing ours, to the ones responsible for covering up ritual sexual abuse of hundreds of boys across the club, the governing body, the justice system and the politicians who enabled this too.

When this day comes, and make no bones about it, it is coming, they will never recover. Ever.

Personally, I don't care how many tainted titles they rack up, so long as we are moving in the right direction on and off the park.

Our European run shows we are improving on field, the increased value of our players shows both on and off field improvement and the most recent accounts show off field improvements. We are almost free of the yoke of Sports direct, certainly the situation is much better than it was a year ago, and the fight continues.

Has Gerrard made mistakes? Of course he has. Have we been as bad as plenty on here like to make out? No.

Should he be sacked? Not even close to a maybe for me. We have improved. Though what some are missing is that the other teams around us have had settled squads and improved too, and have the benefit of playing against us which means they get the lion's share of decisions in their favour.

To paraphrase Mr Struth, keep the heid, bears and follow on.
 
Lots of folk on here are though,

Let’s be honest over £10million and 16 new players, the group stages of the Europa League should have been the minimum target, but because we had a freak result the year before people have lower expectations.

If people remember back our previous exit in Europe prior to Progres was to Maribor, we were actually humiliated and pumped out of Europe twice in quick succession that season firstly Malmo then Maribor. Both these were huge shocks particularly Maribor so why is it seen as some great achievement we beat them this season.

You're highlighting our failures in Europe when the Club was in a healthier position (at least on the field) - that only increases surprise at this year's performance.

Maribor have convincingly defeated Scottish teams in the recent past. I'm not saying it's a "great achievement" but it's certainly an improvement.

Our Euro performances have generally been poor over the 25 years+. I'm not sure how, therefore, you can be setting the group stages as the minimum target in our current circumstances when we failed in 'better' times.
 
How far back do you go without this “contex” ?

We could turn it right round and say when we got put out by Progres we were finishing third, yes third in the Scottish Championship (effectively the 15th best team in Scotland) only 3 seasons before. What right did a team who hadn’t played in Europe for over five years and been put out of Europe twice in the same season by minnows, and in fact a team who had one win out of their previous 14 games in Europe over the last 2 seasons we were in Europe, have a divine right to beat anyone, minnows or not.

We lined up against Maribor with players like Davis, Jelavic, Lafferty, McCulloch and Edu who had been bought for millions of pounds - they 5 alone cost the best part of 18 million - we had players like McGregor who had signed a massive contract that summer, and bosman additions like the Captain of America - that was a costly squad even that far outspent what we had the summer just gone, a squad built over a number of years to win titles and make the Champions League.

This season when we played them we had played a team who the season before had made the CL while we ourselves hadn't - Maribor have shown themselves to be a perfectly competent team in Europe.

Progress were a team of joiners and plumbers a part time football team..... NOTHING, and no context will alter how fucken shambolic that defeat was - it wasn't a "divine" right to beat them a logical, sensible and competent football coach would have done.
 
You're highlighting our failures in Europe when the Club was in a healthier position (at least on the field) - that only increases surprise at this year's performance.

Maribor have convincingly defeated Scottish teams in the recent past. I'm not saying it's a "great achievement" but it's certainly an improvement.

Our Euro performances have generally been poor over the 25 years+. I'm not sure how, therefore, you can be setting the group stages as the minimum target in our current circumstances when we failed in 'better' times.

Yes I did but if you read my other posts you will see I gave some context to the Progres result, in that only 3 seasons before we were Scotland’s 15th best team. As you and others keep using it as some barometer of European success.

There are freak results in Europe every year.

Look at ourselves UEFA cup finalists one season spent £20 million on the team and were served up our our biggest European humiliation immediately the next season by Kaunas.

PLG had us unbeaten in Europe but a high number of fans wanted him gone.

Gordon Strachan first game in Europe became Celtics biggest ever humiliation, getting beat 5-0 and pumped out of Europe by Artmedia. He went on to win the double that season.

Brendan Rodgers then overseen celtics biggest Euro humiliation in his first game when they lost to the mighty red imps from Gibraltar. He went on and won the treble, then again and probably would have again if he hadn’t got fed up with it and left.

Even proven competent coaches slip up in Europe.
 
Yes I did but if you read my other posts you will see I gave some context to the Progres result, in that only 3 seasons before we were Scotland’s 15th best team. As you and others keep using it as some barometer of European success.

There are freak results in Europe every year.

Look at ourselves UEFA cup finalists one season spent £20 million on the team and were served up our our biggest European humiliation immediately the next season by Kaunas.

PLG had us unbeaten in Europe but a high number of fans wanted him gone.

Gordon Strachan first game in Europe became Celtics biggest ever humiliation, getting beat 5-0 and pumped out of Europe by Artmedia. He went on to win the double that season.

Brendan Rodgers then overseen celtics biggest Euro humiliation in his first game when they lost to the mighty red imps from Gibraltar. He went on and won the treble, then again and probably would have again if he hadn’t got fed up with it and left.

Even proven competent coaches slip up in Europe.

Angry man thinks our 14 game run in Europe was a freak.
 
I say this as someone that wants him to stay - I cannot stress that enough.

Thinking about it since the weekend. We are currently at 0 wins in 4, will all likely be 0 in 5 after Mordor followed by 7 of the more difficult games.

If we finish the season with a record like 3/4 wins from 12, how do we sell that? How do we make a case he should survive that and keep a straight face.

I'll be honest I am concerned this is going to get messy by May.

Based on the current atmosphere around the support, I honestly believe we will see a lot of people calling for Gerrard's head if we fail to put in a performance at the piggery, never mind the rest of our matches.

This season still has the potential to get very messy fast if we don't come out of the current slump we are in. Could even see it going the same way as the end of last season based on how thin our support's patience is wearing.

I believe he should be given until next season to make his mark, but will the majority of our support feel that way if we continue on in our current form for the remainder of the season? Really can't see it.
 
Yes I did but if you read my other posts you will see I gave some context to the Progres result, in that only 3 seasons before we were Scotland’s 15th best team. As you and others keep using it as some barometer of European success.

There are freak results in Europe every year.

Look at ourselves UEFA cup finalists one season spent £20 million on the team and were served up our our biggest European humiliation immediately the next season by Kaunas.

PLG had us unbeaten in Europe but a high number of fans wanted him gone.

Gordon Strachan first game in Europe became Celtics biggest ever humiliation, getting beat 5-0 and pumped out of Europe by Artmedia. He went on to win the double that season.

Brendan Rodgers then overseen celtics biggest Euro humiliation in his first game when they lost to the mighty red imps from Gibraltar. He went on and won the treble, then again and probably would have again if he hadn’t got fed up with it and left.

Even proven competent coaches slip up in Europe.

Again, you're not reading correctly. No one is using Progres as the benchmark - it's a reference point given it happened 12 months ago. Our European performances are a huge step forward given that debacle.

I think it's genuinely sad how you perceive the Club. You're repeatedly willing to offer context and excuses for the shambles that was Caixinha, yet are keen to diminish any positivity and promise from this season.

There is no relevance to Rodgers given the clubs have been in very different circumstances for a number of years (and I don't think they went out to Imps).

You sound rather confused in your determination to see failure in every step.
 
Sorry, but you haven't. You've said plenty about who and what you DON'T want. You've even said what you want - but I'll come back to my question WHO would you suggest should have been appointed at this point last year. (Or, indeed now if Gerrard was to be replaced)?

Are you suggesting that the club - the famous Glasgow Rangers, no less - would have trouble attracting a top-class, high-quality manager to the club?

Are you also suggesting that it's only possible to criticise the board's managerial employment unless you have a better option in mind?

I'll repeat what I've said before - I'm not sure. I know the characteristics of the person but no one off the top of my head. But then again, I'm not in the position of knowing who that might be, am I? I'm literally typing this at a place of employment where my sole purpose isn't the recruitment or scouting of possible future managers.
 
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gerrard will be judged at the end of the season,not before
it was a gamble taking him on as manager,and hopefully he will have learned by his mistakes
the only 3 things I wish he would do/have done are
should have brought in an experienced manager,maybe to help him along get experience
signed a No10 style player
only play 4-3-3(hibs,scum) when we play teams that don't sit in,change it to 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 other times
 
I've got it bang on, you've made a right Mike Hunt of yourself and have at first been all defensive but now you go to personal stuff because I was calling you out. Stop with the sumantics and take heed of the quote by Struth I quoted to you earlier.

I've made a Mike Hunt? You've literally said I supported sacking Gerrard and when confronted with the lack of evidence to suggest this said that I was "implying it."

Your posts have been increasingly cryptic and you've not even bothered explaining them yourself; you're now claiming that you were "calling me out" - for what, I'm not sure - and have suggested that I was going after you personally.

Aye, I've made a Mike Hunt of it sure enough.
 
I'm fully behind him. It'll take more than two transfer windows to get us to where we were, and I think that he's the man to get us where we need to be. It's frustrating at the minute, but I've total faith that we can get this done, hard though it is.
 
Agreed 100% but it's Rangers and growth, stability and success are all measures by trophies. Many of our fans (myself included) see anyone else winning as a sign of failure at our club: they do well when we struggle. Slowly steadily getting a wee bit better with no silverware is nothing at our club and never has been.
It's a nice soundbite but fails to take into consideration that the financial gap has never been wider between ourselves and the Yahoos. Until we somehow manage to start to bridge that gap then the odds are going to be hugely against us to win a title. Not impossible, but very difficult. Gerrard needs backed properly to allow him to add the quality we are so badly lacking.
 
Are you suggesting that the club - the famous Glasgow Rangers, no less - would have trouble attracting a top-class, high-quality manager to the club?

Are you also suggesting that it's only possible to criticise the board's managerial employment unless you have a better option in mind?

I'll repeat what I've said before - I'm not sure. I know the characteristics of the person but no one off the top of my head. But then again, I'm not in the position of knowing who that might be, am I? I'm literally typing this at a place of employment where my sole purpose isn't the recruitment or scouting of possible future managers.
No. I was simply pointing out that you hadn't answered the 'who' question.
 
It's a nice soundbite but fails to take into consideration that the financial gap has never been wider between ourselves and the Yahoos. Until we somehow manage to start to bridge that gap then the odds are going to be hugely against us to win a title. Not impossible, but very difficult. Gerrard needs backed properly to allow him to add the quality we are so badly lacking.
It's not a soundbite. Since 1872 our lads have been known for their football, their ability to draw crowds etc. We've never 'settled' and fans won't settle now. You missed my point entirely...our club is NOT built on giving anyone 'several years to get to right'. Not even Pep. Our massive fan base want to compete and no manager, chairman or board has years.
 
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Not going to happen and rightly so.
He and his staff have made massive improvements to every part of the football department in 8 short months to the extent that we need only change out about 4 players for better first team picks. MASSIVE improvement since July last year,
For what it is worth IMO he is the only man for the job of rebuild as he has pure pedigree in football. That said, he should be made aware by his peers that having a season without getting to a national final and out of the league challenge with a hand full of games is total failure and never will be acceptable and that it is a given that the tin tack will follow.
 
It's not a soundbite. Since 1872 our lads have been known for their football, their ability to draw crowds etc. We've never 'settled' and fans won't settle now. You missed my point entirely...our club is NOT built on giving anyway 'several years to get to right'. Not even Pep. Our massive fan base want to compete and no manager, chairman or board has years.

It's a reality deeply engrained in our club. Many of us said in the summer when SG was being announced that even he wouldn't get endless time to get it right and would come under the microscope if he wasn't delivering the success as defined by our support as a whole.

The bottom line always has been and always will be in our lifetimes - we have to be ahead of Celtic. That's when the support will be happy. Everything else is desirable and a bonus. However, if every season we just win the league, ultimately the support will be pleased.

Even under Walter I remember some of the turgid, dragging ourselves through, football we played. Scraping results, but winning. Folk moaning like fck all season - get to the end and lift the title? Everyone's fcking bouncing and he's the first name everyone shouts when we're in the grubber and are scraping around for a solution to our woes.

Frankly, I think Gerrard knows fine that it's not about playing nice football at Rangers, it's about winning trophies. He said as much a couple of weeks ago.

He also knows he can't ride on a wave of "time to build" for very long. If there's even the beginnings of murmurs of discontent already, then he needs to get things moving in a positive direction fast. The remainder of the run-in will heap huge pressure on him. If he can finally string some wins together, he'll get a boost of support. If we continue this dire league form in the next few weeks, there'll be a damn sight more grumbles. Nobody can deny that surely?
 
I think he will now know that his preferred 'technical 4-3-3' will fail up here and he needs far more strength, pace and stamina. We need to mix it up and - sadly - fight, fight, fight to win 1:1 battles and then play.
 
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