Jimmy Nicholl has urged Rangers manager Steven Gerrard to take a leaf out of Graeme Souness’ book in the transfer market this summer.
Souness oversaw a period of great transformation at Ibrox, signing a string of top England internationals to turn the Gers into consistent title contenders.
And former caretaker manager Nicholl, who played under Souness, wants to see something similar from the current boss.
As quoted in the Daily Record, he said: “There has been inconsistency with too many draws but Steven is a football man and upstairs will help him. I’m sure it has been an eye opener for him at times.
“Graeme Souness surrounded himself with English internationalists, including Terry Butcher and Chris Woods. There were loads of factors that led to us winning the title that year but it was about good experienced players who had a handle on the situation.
“That’s what I hope Steven does in the summer. I hope he addresses whatever he believes is needed and gets the backing from the board.”
OPINION
In many ways, these are strange comments from Nicholl. Obviously anybody associated with Rangers hopes that the club makes good signings in the summer, but surely he isn’t suggesting that Steven Gerrard can go out and sign a string of England internationals a la Butcher and Woods? The reason that Souness was able to do that back then was because the market wasn’t the ridiculously inflated free-for-all that it is now, and because the Scottish game, at that point, hadn’t fallen too far behind its English counterpart. Fast forward to 2019, and the Gers will be lucky if they can keep hold of Ryan Kent. Presumably, Nicholl is advocating something a little more sensible than signing full England internationals, but all he will do by comparing Gerrard to Souness is create unrealistic expectations and a stick with which the current boss can be beaten if and when things don’t go his way.