With the news that Steven Gerrard sneaked out the Ibrox back door to sign for Aston Villa like a thief in the night now confirmed, many are comparing it to what happened to Celtic when Brendan Rodgers did exactly the same thing back in February 2019. Looking closer at the whole situation there are obviously many similarities, but there are a few crucial differences too.
The first similarity is obviously the way they have left, with no warning and both having recently reassured their current clubs fan-base that they had no intentions of going anywhere. It would take some doing but Gerrard has actually managed to top his old boss in this category by slipping (he has a habit of that) out during an International break, not even having the decency to let any of his current players know what was happening.
We can also compare the timing of each manager vacating the hot seat. We were left disgusted when Rodgers left us at the end of February, with two out of the three domestic trophies still to be played for having already wrapped up the league cup by beating Aberdeen in December. Fortunately he had left us 8 points ahead in the league and still in the Scottish Cup, although it was right before we played Hearts in that very competition.
We were also looking strong at the time and most fans believed we were perfectly on course to complete yet another treble, although admittedly that confidence took a hit when the news that our manager had deserted us filtered through.
Gerrard leaves theRangers currently sitting atop of the Cinch Premiership, 4 points ahead of Celtic and with a league cup semi final to look forward to, but with the team looking nowhere near as confident as Celtic were back when Rodgers left us.
In fact before the Gerrard rumours even surfaced most people agreed that although top of the league, theRangers have struggled this season and with Ange’s team only starting to go through the gears Gerrard’s men look there for the taken. With it only being November, a 4 point margin really isn’t anything that will worry Celtic. They also have a much tricker fixture list between now and the New Year, having been handed a favourable start to the season thanks to that ‘random’ fixture computer.
As I previously explained in an article I wrote yesterday, there is also a vast difference in the level of club Rodgers and Gerrard have left Glasgow for. When Brendan Rodgers left Celtic for Leicester City many fans of the Ibrox club scoffed at us for our manager deserting us mid-season for an ‘average’ EPL team. That ‘average’ team had won the Premier League two and a half years previous, Aston Villa were a Championship club only two and a half years ago.
Leicester at that time were mid-table with no relegation worries giving Rodgers time to plan and build towards the following season. Aston Villa are currently 16th and just three points off relegation. Gerrard will have to produce results right away or the fans will be on his back. Put it this way can you imagine Aston Villa becoming a Champions League club with Gerrard as boss? No, neither can I.
The last part is what the two have achieved during their tenure as manager. This is where the difference is huge, yet by the way the mainstream media is reacting to the story you wouldn’t think so. During Rodgers time at Celtic he won every domestic trophy available. Seven trophies in 2 and a half years. He also completed a true ‘invincible’ season domestically by going unbeaten in the league and in all of the cups. His team also qualified for the Champions League during his reign.
Steven Gerrard on the other hand has won one trophy out of the nine available to him. Yes, it was the league title which stopped us from completing ten in a row but in the grand scheme of things it’s still just one trophy. When you look at the fact that Callum Davidson has led St Johnstone to two trophies in less time than Gerrard has been at theRangers it really does sum up his achievements. He wasn’t a successful manager at Ibrox. Did he improve them? Undoubtedly, but that doesn’t mean he was a success. That’s measured in trophies and one out of nine is a failure.
The way Rodgers abandoned Celtic left us all as fans with a bad taste in our mouths and a grudge against him that some may never relinquish but when we look at things clearly he did actually leave the club in a strong position. The timing though was awful. But if we had just let Neil Lennon steer us towards the treble then thanked the man for helping us out in our time of need, shook his hand and said goodbye we could have continued in an upwards curve under a superior coach for years to come.
Don’t forget we had a handsome compensation fee from Leicester to play with, as well as time to deeply scrutinise potential candidates until we found the right one. Instead we appointed Lennon in the Hampden showers and so our decline begun.
Gerrard is not leaving them in a strong position. They won their only major trophy since their creation in 2012 last year but in all honesty that was due more to Celtic imploding drastically throughout the year than them actually being a good team. Gerrard made them defensively robust but were they actually a good team? Personally I don’t think so.
This year that defensive robustness has disintegrated and they look weak both in attack and in defence. Gerrard has ‘peeked over the fence’ at Ange Postecoglou’s Celtic and has wisely decided to hotfoot it down to England before the wheels come off under the pressure of trying to contain Celtic’s title charge.
For all we may think of Rodgers one thing that stands out is that he left Celtic when he felt he had hit his ceiling at Celtic and the board wouldn’t back him in trying to make the club even more successful matching his European ambitions.
Make no qualms about it, Steven Gerrard is jumping ship before the boat sinks and his ambitions of managing Liverpool at some stage sink with it.
He may actually be smarter than we all gave him credit for.
Conall McGinty
A Villa are being maligned by Sevco fans as a backward step for Slippy yet they have two European cup successes to their name .Slippy couldn’t give them one cup in 3.5 years of toiling in Scotland.
It was Hibernian at Easter road Celtic played in Scottish cup soon after Rodgers left not Hearts whom we beat later in cup final.