LAST UPDATE | 4 May 2018
RANGERS HAVE UNVEILED former Liverpool and England midfielder Steven Gerrard as their new manager, confirming he would join the Scottish Premiership club this summer on a four-year deal.
“I am honoured to become the next manager of Rangers,” Gerrard said in a statement on the club’s website. “I have enormous respect for this football club, and its history and tradition.
“I can’t wait to start this new journey at Rangers as we look to build on the many successes that this club has achieved.”
Chairman Dave King said: “From the very beginning, talks have been extremely positive and we believe that Steven is the right man to drive Rangers forward.”
Gerrard, who has only previously worked with Liverpool’s U18s, was an inspirational captain and Champions League winner in a 17-year career at Anfield but as a managerial rookie, the 37-year-old faces a huge challenge to compete with bitter rivals Celtic for domestic dominance in Scotland.
Celtic’s 5-0 thrashing of Rangers on Sunday sealed a seventh straight Scottish Premiership title for the green-and-white side of Glasgow.
Gerrard also faces the challenge of outfoxing his former manager at Liverpool in Celtic’s Brendan Rodgers.
The arrival of the former England captain will restore some star power to a league that has found it increasingly hard to attract and hold on to top players against the booming television revenues of the Premier League.
Rangers are still recovering from the fallout of their liquidation in 2012 and subsequent demotion to the fourth tier of Scottish football.
In their second season back in the top flight, Rangers trail Celtic by 13 points, and are locked in a battle with Aberdeen and Hibernian just to finish second.
Rangers fans excited by the prospect of Gerrard’s arrival have cited his stature as aiding the Ibrox club’s ability to recruit a better quality player in what is expected to be a busy transfer window.
But Rangers still have to overcome a huge financial disparity with Celtic. Bolstered by revenue from the Champions League, Celtic’s £90 million turnover last year was three times that of their Old Firm rivals.
Betting on an inexperienced manager with no previous ties to Scottish football is also seen as another huge risk taken by Rangers’ beleaguered board.
Caretaker manager Graeme Murty, who had been promoted from his role as the club’s U20 coach, was sacked this week after six months in charge.
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Although he’s probably what Rangers don’t need right now.. It Certainly will make the SPL more interesting next season.. However he may be back south of the border quicker than Joey Barton was..
If you look historically on how British society aligned to club – Liverpool and Rangers would come from similar demographic origins.
Everton – Celtic would be the similar.
@Ted Logan: there’s more history between Rangers and United over the last 30 years than Liverpool and Rangers. Fergie, Kanchelskis, Henning Berg. Not many Liverpool dealings with em?
@Ted Logan: spot on. Never understand the Liverpool thing in Ireland. Everton was considered the Catholic part of town. Typically we afffiliate ourselves based on religion. I know they had a good few Irish players in the 80′s but I’m talking about the founding of the club in the 1800s.
@Joshua Walsh: Who gives a shiiit about religion? This is football.
@Joshua Walsh: Everton were founded by Methodists
@Joshua Walsh: To be fair the majority of Irish fans weren’t born in the 1800’s they were around when Whelan, Staunton, Aldridge, Houghton, Beglin and Lawrenson were all at the club in the 80’s
@Joshua Walsh: Man Utd and Celtic have had more Irish players (by quite a distance) than any other clubs outside of Ireland.
@Joshua Walsh: pool fans they jumped on the bandwagon that’s why
@Joshua Walsh: Yes, as a five year old the most important thing for me about a football team was definitely the theological position the founders of the club took. Could never support Liverpool because some guy in the 1890s who set them up didn’t believe in transubstantiation and didn’t recognise his Holiness as God’s representative on Earth.
@Ted Logan: sssssshhhhhh. Don’t ruin the illusion. Sure Everton win nothing.
@PJ Connolly: I well remember at five years of age thinking deeply and philosophically about whether I could support a team which had evolved from the Stanley Cricket club in 1881, due to my aversion to cricket which even then was substantial. Ultimately however, the black and white stripey jerseys of Newcastle United were enough to sway me, my logic telling me that they were simply cooler than what any other team wore.
@Maureen: firstly you completely missed the point I was making.
Secondly, it shouldn’t matter where a player has played or managed it’s just football. However, try to walk into a pub in this country wearing a Rangers jersey and see what happens.
@Alan J. McKenna: put in a Rangers jersey and walk into any pub in Ireland – see what happens. You right though, religion shouldn’t matter.
@Maureen:Tbh I’m a United fan. But you’re forgetting Utd also signed Andy Gorman on loan for a few games. Less said about that the better!! Think he played 2 but possibly only 1 competitive game. Didn’t support them during that period..
Hilarious. My Liverpool supporting mates are going off their nut. The same people who only a week and a half ago couldn’t care about Scottish football or Celtic and The Rangers and that all the fans were bigots, now all of a sudden turns out they hated The Rangers all along and a gutted their hero will be managing them. Class.
@Ciaran Rice: says a lot about your friends!! As a Liverpool fan myself, I couldn’t care less who he manages. Souness was a hero of mine as a child and he played for and managed Rangers and my opinion of him never changed.
@The Bloody Nine: well done you.
Other people take issue with the fact that many of their fans actively hate Irish people and had a sectarian signing policy for 100 years. Something they only dropped after UEFA threatened them. Maybe they don’t want to see their hero manage a team like that.
@Ciaran Rice: their hero? How old are your friends?
@Ciaran Rice: Thanks!! So they no longer have a sectarian signing policy. I’ve been to many Celtic games back in O’Neill’s time as coach and I witnessed plenty of hatred among Celtic supporters but bigots will be bigots and I’m glad to say I bear no hatred to anyone. And are we supposed to hate everyone that’s represented Rangers, including the few Irish lads that have in the recent past? Or is it just ‘heroes’? How is there ever going to be progress if you actively participate in an endless cycle of hatred.
@The Bloody Nine: the Irish lads who represented them recently don’t need other fans to hate them. The Rangers fans did enough of that when they played for them. I’m sure you could ask Rob Kiernan about some of the pleasant things his own fans called him.
@Ciaran Rice: Are your mates older than Gerrard? If so, and Gerrard is their hero, then what a sad bunch they are.
Can’t see Gerard cost Rogers any further titles!
@Insider at RTE: some man for a Brendan “character” joke too I’d say. Gas.
Celtic fans will be hoping that he slips up during the season
10 in a row looking good now : )
When he fails there is always bt sport
Can’t see why Liverpool/Celtic fans are up in arms here. Liverpool are a protestant club so much so the first Irish Catholic player they signed was Ronnie Whelan in 1979. Founded by a member of the Orange Order to boot.
Is it not a lose lose here for him?if he does well sure it’s only Scotland and if he does bad sure he couldn’t even cut it in Scotland and they are miles behind celtic and do they even hav the money to give him to bring in any decent players probably would of been better starting with a lower league English club
Well he won’t be picking on any Dj’s in Glasgow, won’t last 10mins if he starts that
It did cometh to pass that the great Govannite hoard did seduce the son Of Liver to their den of unwashed iniquity. The son of Liver was waylaid with lavish promises of wealth within the war chest of the Govannite . Little did he now that the said lavish promises were nothing more than pipe dreams of the hoard. All that was left in act was a poison chalice.
And so it came to pass.
Will always love and respect what he did for Liverpool, but can’t and won’t bring myself to wish him well in this. Horrible, horrible club.
Apparently the stumbling block was over having 8 or 10 grand to spend on transfers. They have met halfway and he will have 9k to refresh the squad.
Add that to the money he could get for Morelos and Halliday and he could be looking at a 9500 pound warchest.
Best of luck to him. Must be an honour to manage the club he has idolised.
I detest everything about that mob. Just watched his press conference and Dave king would make you sick. Even the club ties they wear would make you sick. And to see him walking around shaking hands with fans, don’t worry Stevie they’ll be calling you a Roman Catholic so and so before Christmas
Will Gerrard join the Celtic fans in YNWA ending his management career before it starts.
He’s ambitious, you gotta give him that but this will end in disaster. The Rangers job is a poison chalice, Rangers are currently 10+ years behind Celtic at the moment. Those fans want immediate results and success and it just ain’t gonna happen overnight. Rangers are in an awful way currently. Gerrard will be back picking schoolboys for Liverpool before Xmas.
Apparently as an Irish Liverpool supporter this is supposed to absolutely sicken me! Genuinely couldn’t care less! Souness is one of my all time favourite Liverpool players and he played and managed Rangers! Wish him well in his management career, has more money than he needs so isn’t working to support his family, doing it for ambition! Good on him…
I’m sure most Irish Liverpool fans didn’t shout for him any time he played for England. This is kind of the same thing surely?
Q all the U18’s and U23’s players switching there phones off after 3.00
Well at least at Rangers his mentality will have to change and his favourite year won’t be ‘next year’ anymore
Just what Rangers don’t need. I wish him luck, thought he was more intelligent.
@Bob Cummings: more than luck he’s gonna need there.
Stevie wonder !
Delighted for Celtic. Couldn’t have hopped for a better managerial signing for the Ould firm enemy. As much as I loved Stevie G as a Liverpool player, he has neither the intelligence nor the guile to help these guys finish higher than as also rans for the next 2 to 3 years. The sooner he wises up and gets back to melwood the better. Hope he inflicts as much long term damage to rangers as possible. YNWA.
B
@Daniel Donovan: Best of luck Stevie. Hope he does a good job, for the sake of Scottish football.
@Daniel Donovan: hope he relegates that mob! He should have held on for a job in the championship or league 1 rather than joining that lot.
@Paul Friday Shannon: I think it’s a good job for him. A big challenge but a huge club. Every manager has to start somewhere, and he’s already done an excellent job with the youth team.
@Paul Friday Shannon: Agree Paul. I thought Sunderland would have been a great job for him.