Rangers manager Steven Gerrard delivered a spiky response to a journalist on Monday morning during the pre-Malmo press conference [RangersTV].
The Gers are taking on the Swedish giants in Champions League Third Round Qualifying, with the first leg in Malmo on Tuesday night.
Ahead of the trip, the manager fielded questions from a mixture of UK-based and foreign journalists and things started off relatively normally.
The first question came from a foreign reporter, who asked Gerrard for his thoughts on Malmo.
“I think they are a very impressive team, very strong, very fit and they work extremely hard for the manager,” he said [RangersTV]. “Obviously, we’ve focused on the last two Champions League games against HJK Helsinki a lot and yes, I’ve been very impressed by them.”
“It’s going to be a big challenge for us but one that we’re really excited about and looking forward to.”
It’s wasn’t the longest response in the world but Gerrard answered the question and provided some decent quotes to work with.
The Gers boss was then left visibly annoyed when the second overseas journalist to speak asked a pretty much identical question: “What do you know about Malmo as a team?”
The response was spiky.
“I’ve just answered that question about 45 seconds ago,” he said.
The journalist came back with “ok then, do you see yourself as favourites?”
But Gerrard’s mood hadn’t improved any and he replied: “Last time I checked I’m a football manager, not a bookmaker, if you want to find out what the odds are just find a website, there’s many of them out there”, before pointing to the sponsors on his training kit.
Rangers’ controversial press policy has ensured that the manager has had to field considerably fewer questions so far this season than he otherwise would have done, but he was in no mood to repeat himself on Monday morning.
Going into Tuesday’s first leg without several important players including Glen Kamara, Kemar Roofe and likely Alfredo Morelos makes this tie an even bigger challenge, but Gerrard will still be backing his squad to get the job done given the calibre of opposition they defeated in last season’s Europa League.
An imminent announcement could hand the Gers a timely boost ahead of the tie.
