OPINION
Steven Gerrard was one of the best footballers this country has ever produced and he’s not a bad manager either. His first season at Rangers might have gone better in terms of silverware, but he’s taken the club forward and gone a long way towards rebuilding the squad into title pretenders.
But there’s a story that refuses to go away completely, and that’s of Gerrard lacing his bots up again and being a player manager.
It was brought up again on the Jim White Show on talkSPORT (Monday, March 25th, 10am), when the host asked if Danny Murphy could see him playing again.
This came after Gerrard turned out for the Liverpool legends side at Anfield on Saturday and, predictably, scored the winner in the game.
Murphy thinks he’s still plenty good enough for the Rangers side and said he’d probably score the winner against Celtic if he played in this weekend’s Old Firm clash.
“I don’t know his fitness right now, but what I saw the other day… with a bit of tweaking he’d walk into that Ranger side,” Murphy said.
“He’d boss it. If he put his boots on against Celtic, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he got the winner.”
This is fantasy football at its very best. Rangers fans would love it if Gerrard came out of retirement. And we’ve no doubt that at 38 he could still play a huge game in the Premiership. Jermain Defoe is 36 and still banging goals away at Ibrox.
However, it’s not going to happen. Gerrard put his boots away when he retired at the end of 2016 after a stint in the MLS. And he won’t be coming back.
He’s a manager now and whether he can do a job for Rangers on the pitch is irrelevant. It’s testament to his career as a player that he’s still talked about in these terms, but the chances of Gerrard pulling on a Rangers jersey are probably about as slim as Scott Brown doing the same. More’s the pity.
“Steven Gerrard would walk into the Rangers team now and boss it.” ?
“If he played vs #CelticFC, it wouldn’t surprise me if he got the winner.” ??
Danny Murphy says Gerrard is still good enough to run the game for #RangersFC pic.twitter.com/yMEMmj3d3f
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) March 25, 2019