Mark Allen reveals the uncredited Rangers man who helped Steven Gerrard turn 'empty drawers' into an Ibrox blueprint

Salamanca

Well-Known Member
The Welshman was on board when Gerrard arrived and believes there's a host of reasons why things are now going so well.

Organised. Ruthless. Relentless.

That’s what Mark Allen wanted a Rangers team under Steven Gerrard to look like.

If they got there? He was convinced the Ibrox club would eventually take over from Celtic.

And as the former director of football at Ibrox watches Gerrard’s side cruise to the Premiership title, the sense of pride he feels is tangible.

Allen now works at Swansea City but his part in where Rangers are now, can’t be forgotten or underestimated.

After all, along with former chairman Dave King, he’s the guy who chose Gerrard to be the club’s manager in June 2018.

He had to plan for the future with one of the most important appointments in Gers’ history.

That’s why, when Allen allows himself to think about James Tavernier lifting that Premiership trophy, he’s filled with genuine emotion.

They had a vision three years ago and he’s now seeing it come to fruition at Ibrox.

Allen said: “Some of the terminology we tried to integrate into the Rangers operation early doors included words like
organised, ruthless, relentless.

“That was both on and off the pitch and that’s what you’re seeing now in this Rangers team.

“It always takes time for a culture to come together. But it’s fair to say that Rangers are now organised.

“And in their pursuit of the league title, they’ve been relentless and ruthless when they needed to, putting chances away.

“I’m seeing all that come to life and that culture is really living now. It’s gone from what was a vision and a desire into a reality.

“How will I feel when James lifts that trophy? I have to be careful that I don’t get too emotional. Immense pride

“There was a lot of work that went on. Rangers can be a difficult club sometimes.

“I’m someone who’s always backed my convictions. I’ve been strong and resolute enough to have a plan and see it through.

“It’s hugely satisfying that it’s going to come home.” Allen was beside Gerrard at his unveiling in the Blue Room at Ibrox.

As much as the Liverpool
legend had that unmistakable aura about him, there were still doubts about his appointment.

Rangers needed someone with personality, character – a gaffer who could carry the club on to the same level as Celtic before eventually toppling them.

But Gerrard’s only experience in coaching was with the Anfield Under-18 side

From the outside, it looked like a massive gamble.

Not for Allen. He said: “From my time working at Manchester City previously, I’d got to see Steven in action at Liverpool.

“We played them at home, before Steven’s appointment and then again after. There was a marked difference. It was two different Liverpool teams, in terms of the application, desire and intensity.

“It was Steven Gerrard. And I knew that he’d have that effect on players.

“That was always at the back of my mind. I knew he could bring that to the table. The key with Steven was
agreeing with the board that he was the type of person we had to look at as a Rangers manager.

“Once we’d settled on him being someone we’d like to speak to, we went down the formal route with Liverpool who granted us permission. I was then able to share with Steven the philosophy, the vision, how it would work and importantly what he thought he would need to make it a success.

“When I first mentioned it to him, he was all ears. We had a good plan of action and were able to lay that out.

Chief scout Andy Scoulding with former director of football Mark Allen
“It was a plan for the future, a vision of where Rangers had to be short, medium and long-term.

“He could see where we were trying to get to.

“Steven has always been someone who has risen to challenges and I presented him with the perfect challenge.

“I was not concerned in the slightest, despite the scepticism. I had every confidence in Steven from day one.

“How do you define experience? You can define it by win ratio at other clubs.

“But that wasn’t the rationale I applied when I was looking for the next Rangers manager.

“I wanted a winner, a leader with character. And for that, Gerrard was one of the most experienced candidates.

“That’s why I had no doubts he was right from the get go.

“From being with him, I knew if we built the right team on and off the pitch, we’d be successful.”

King and Rangers’ head of scouting, Andy Scoulding, also played their part in Gerrard’s appointment.

But their first contact was Allen’s meeting with him at his home in Merseyside that summer.

That’s where the foundations were laid for the Ibrox side who are now excelling in Scotland and in Europe.

Allen always felt it would take three years to deliver what the fans wanted and that’s exactly how it has panned out.

Swansea City’s academy director, who left Ibrox in September 2019 for family reasons, said: “Our initial meeting was at Steven’s house.

“It was prior to Dave going down to Anfield for a game against Roma.

“And Andy is probably someone who’s not perhaps given the headlines he deserves.

“When I came into Rangers, there were empty drawers.

“There was nothing in terms of dossiers or succession plans, or any form of database.

“Andy is responsible for all of that. Yes, I gave him a vision but Andy did a lot of the ground work.

“I was probably selling Rangers to Steven that day in his house.

“You couldn’t go in with arrogance thinking, because we’re Rangers, he would want to come.

“We had to be sure that Rangers were right for him – and endorse that he was right for us. There was a
meeting of minds to articulate where we wanted to go.

“Thankfully, it fitted in as the right challenge for Steven.

“The plan was very simple. First, to close the gap on Celtic.

“Second was to win the league. And the third was to put Rangers back to where their consistency level used to be.

“Without being smart, I thought it would take three years. Lo and behold, it’s been three years.

“Of course, you’re always wise after the event. But seriously, it was always laid out in that way.

“I was confident that we just had to show year on year that we were getting closer.”


Mark allen played his part but much prefer Ross Wilson from what I have seen
 
Mark Allen is another person that our support seem to take great pleasure in criticising/abusing on a regular basis but he laid the foundations which led us to where we are now.

Ross Wilson might be a better director of football (I think he is) but there's no guarantee he would've identified Gerrard and convinced him to take the job.

The appointment of Gerrard is one of the most significant moments in our clubs entire history IMO and Mark Allen deserves credit for doing it.

It's nice to hear that he still has emotional ties to the club.
 
Mark Allen is another person that our support seem to take great pleasure in criticising/abusing on a regular basis but he laid the foundations which led us to where we are now.

Ross Wilson might be a better director of football (I think he is) but there's no guarantee he would've identified Gerrard and convinced him to take the job.

The appointment of Gerrard is one of the most significant moments in our clubs entire history IMO and Mark Allen deserves credit for doing it.

It's nice to hear that he still has emotional ties to the club.
I don’t think Mark Allen meant any ill will towards us. He played his part, that’s for sure. He may not have done some great deals but you win some you lose some. He’s been blamed for bad deals and some costly bad deals. But compare that to what we had before him.
 
Mark Allen is another person that our support seem to take great pleasure in criticising/abusing on a regular basis but he laid the foundations which led us to where we are now.

Ross Wilson might be a better director of football (I think he is) but there's no guarantee he would've identified Gerrard and convinced him to take the job.

The appointment of Gerrard is one of the most significant moments in our clubs entire history IMO and Mark Allen deserves credit for doing it.

It's nice to hear that he still has emotional ties to the club.

Mark Allen identified Steven Gerrard. Ross Wilson will be the man left with the task of replacing Steven Gerrard, eventually.
 
I don’t think Mark Allen meant any ill will towards us. He played his part, that’s for sure. He may not have done some great deals but you win some you lose some. He’s been blamed for bad deals and some costly bad deals. But compare that to what we had before him.

Mark Allen gave his all for us and just wasn't what we needed going forward. I know someone who works in the IT department for Rangers and he told me Allen was a workaholic. I think Ross Wilson was always the boards long term choice as director of football but you have to praise Allen for laying the foundations.

Every single director of football makes bad deals, our support seem to focus on Allens bad deals rather than all the good deals he made.

I said this in the Joe Worrall thread and I echo it in here. Mark Allen played his part in getting us back to where we belong and I will always appreciate his contribution. He is more than welcome to come back to Ibrox any time he wants and I consider him one of us now.
 
The appointment of Gerrard for me is even bigger than when Sourness came. At the time it was billed as a revolution in Scottish football and it was.

We needed a person of that magnitude to drag us back to the top and he has delivered, what Gerrard has done for Rangers eclipses what Souness did.

In context of the thread then Mark Allen deserves enormous credit for any part he played in bringing him here.
 
Mark Allen deserves more credit than he gets. Couple of poor signings with the likes of Nemane and arguably Barker but also helped bring Gerrard to the club
 
Mark Allen gave his all for us and just wasn't what we needed going forward. I know someone who works in the IT department for Rangers and he told me Allen was a workaholic. I think Ross Wilson was always the boards long term choice as director of football but you have to praise Allen for laying the foundations.

Every single director of football makes bad deals, our support seem to focus on Allens bad deals rather than all the good deals he made.

I said this in the Joe Worrall thread and I echo it in here. Mark Allen played his part in getting us back to where we belong and I will always appreciate his contribution. He is more than welcome to come back to Ibrox any time he wants and I consider him one of us now.
I liked that read. Interesting
 
Mark Allen deserves more credit than he gets. Couple of poor signings with the likes of Nemane and arguably Barker but also helped bring Gerrard to the club
They always said no player was brought in without the agreement of the coaching staff. If you get 6/7 out of the 10 right your doing well.
 
Mark Allen is another person that our support seem to take great pleasure in criticising/abusing on a regular basis but he laid the foundations which led us to where we are now.

Ross Wilson might be a better director of football (I think he is) but there's no guarantee he would've identified Gerrard and convinced him to take the job.

The appointment of Gerrard is one of the most significant moments in our clubs entire history IMO and Mark Allen deserves credit for doing it.

It's nice to hear that he still has emotional ties to the club.

Absolutely. I started a thread about him a few months ago actually.

He just isn't very well liked with a lot of connected fans and they try and downplay the impact he had with us. He has been a crucial part of our rebuild.

 
Goldson, Katic, Barisic, Kamara and Kent were all brought in when Allen was the director of football. They more than make up for any mistakes he made.
I’m struggling to think of one who cost us a fee or wasn’t a loan, who has been a poor signing.
 
The appointment of Gerrard was brilliant.

It's quite well known that Mark rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way at Ibrox and was a difficult character for whatever reason.

Both parties have moved on and are doing well
 
The appointment of Gerrard was brilliant.

It's quite well known that Mark rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way at Ibrox and was a difficult character for whatever reason.

Both parties have moved on and are doing well
I think the reason is glaringly obvious after reading that.
 
Going by that article we should be grateful he came to us. As my gran would’ve said - If he was chocolate he’d eat himself.
 
Probably, based on many trustworthy accounts of his time here.

However, he played his part and it takes all kinds. Every contribution since King, Murray (P) and Gillian won the day has made a difference.

I’d prefer to leave it at that.

I was told by the lad I mentioned previously that Allen was hated by pretty much every member of staff at Auchenhowie.
 
We shouldn't underestimate the level of work involved in rebuilding the club after we got rid of Ashley, Green etc.

Anyone who has taken us from that point until now deserves appreciation.
 
Mark Allen is another person that our support seem to take great pleasure in criticising/abusing on a regular basis but he laid the foundations which led us to where we are now.

Ross Wilson might be a better director of football (I think he is) but there's no guarantee he would've identified Gerrard and convinced him to take the job.

The appointment of Gerrard is one of the most significant moments in our clubs entire history IMO and Mark Allen deserves credit for doing it.

It's nice to hear that he still has emotional ties to the club.
So very true. He may not be a popular man in many quarters, but his ground work at the club has been critical to where we are now.
8 of the starting 11 against Antwerp were signed under Allen. His influence in bringing Gerrard also seems to get lost. He proposed Gerrard to King.
He gave Ross Wilson more than just a solid foundation to take the club forward.
We should be grateful for his service, not as dismissive as many seem to be
 
Mark Allen is another person that our support seem to take great pleasure in criticising/abusing on a regular basis but he laid the foundations which led us to where we are now.

Ross Wilson might be a better director of football (I think he is) but there's no guarantee he would've identified Gerrard and convinced him to take the job.

The appointment of Gerrard is one of the most significant moments in our clubs entire history IMO and Mark Allen deserves credit for doing it.

It's nice to hear that he still has emotional ties to the club.
I wouldn't call the ones that critisicised him supporters more like online invisible idiots
 
I was told by the lad I mentioned previously that Allen was hated by pretty much every member of staff at Auchenhowie.
I have read similar stuff from people far closer to the innards of the club.

But he made a contribution and has moved on / or was moved on. In these positive times, I am going to focus on the positives!

Hey, Pedro gave Alfredo his first start in a Rangers shirt... ok, that’s taking it too far :cool:
 
"I'm just the manager, not much I can do" or something to that effect pre an old firm game will haunt me forever.

The Scottish Cup semi final should've been his last day in employment with us.

Everything that happened that day stemmed from him and his complete lack of accountability or leadership skills. Running to the board to grass up players ? Instead we allowed him to go Parkhead two weeks later and humiliate us even more and then he expected us to feel sorry for him with his teary "it's a lonely place out there" crap.
 
Mark Allen deserves more credit than he gets. Couple of poor signings with the likes of Nemane and arguably Barker but also helped bring Gerrard to the club

Nemane - now there’s one I’d completely forgotten about
 
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Enjoyed reading that.

He played a part in the progression and we thank him for that.

We have now moved on to the next level.
 
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