When Steven Gerrard joined Rangers, the eyes of the footballing world were transfixed on Glasgow.
Rangers, the very definition of a sleeping giant, had for too long been snoozing on parade. Celtic were sweeping the board whilst Rangers were continuously sweeping out the dead weight season after season.
This was, and remains, the final throw of the dice in taking down Celtic’s seemingly rampant charge to 10IAR.
For Steven Gerrard, it is a football club with a size and stature befitting his on-field legacy. Over 110 England caps, an almost two-decade love affair with Liverpool and multitudes of iconic moments meant the managerial shoes he’d fill would perhaps have to be big enough to fit him.
Rangers fans are pretty-happy it’s a set of brown brogues.
Gerrard’s appointment met with negativity in Scotland
Yet, that bubbling excitement across the world, and in England in particular, was never echoed in Scotland. Outside of Ibrox of course.
It was quite the opposite in fact.
Without naming names, several prominent journalists spoke about the appointment being reckless. They chortled in the face of his seemingly impossible challenge. They waxed lyrical about Brendan Rodgers and his Invincibles. And now their silence is deafening.
Without getting carried away, there’s rarely been such a shuddering awakening in Scottish football. To suggest Rangers and Gerrard can’t challenge for the title is preposterous. It’s verging on deluded. But if Gerrard is to deliver, it’ll have been earned.
Steven Gerrard is ambitious for the club, he’s respectful of the opposition and he won’t stand for any less than a run at 55. This is a fact.
And the humble pie is sticking in these guys throats as they struggle come to terms with it.
Gerrard was a sublime play from the Ibrox Board.
Don’t downplay Rangers role in Celtic’s capitulation
Whilst I won’t be complaining about the calamity-strung-start to the season from our friends to the East, it’s been mightily unexpected.
They might’ve beat us Parkhead but a trip to Russia a few days previously and a lack of self-belief means we’ve not really had a proper toe-to-toe go at them. That’ll change in December.
Celtic look flat. They also look uninventive. And their fans are about two more points dropped away from complete implosion. But they will get better. They’ve got to, right?
But it isn’t all about their own self-capitulation at Parkhead.
They’ve felt a pressure coming out of Glasgow’s southside – even if they did beat us – and as a result it’s getting to them.
It might just get to some of those writing about it too.
