Alex Stewart has been speaking on the TIFO podcast about how Steven Gerrard moving to Aston Villa could see him ‘tarnish’ his reputation as a manager.
Villa decided to part ways with boyhood fan Dean Smith, who managed to get them up from the Championship after a three-year exodus from the Premier League, but they have both moved on swiftly with Smith taking up the manager’s role at Norwich City while his former club have appointed Gerrard as their new boss.
Do you think that Steven Gerrard is a good appointment for Aston Villa?
Yes
No
The former Rangers manager left the Scottish side top of the league and still in with a chance of qualifying from their Europa League group, whereas Villa are two points above the bottom three and winless in their previous five league matches.
This will only be Gerrard’s second-ever first-team managerial role after spending three full seasons with Rangers, but while he achieved success in the SPFL, Stewart believes that if he fails to impress in the Premier League, his reputation may be ruined for when he looks at moving on in the future.
Stewart spoke about how failure at Villa Park may be worse for Gerrard than it is for the club.
“He’s not going to win anything. What he achieved at Rangers in terms of boosting them massively up the UEFA coefficient in terms of winning the Premiership again – you can kind of see that for Villa, it’s a great appointment; for Gerrard, there is the opportunity for him to tarnish that reputation or kind of just tread water a little bit at Villa.”
TIF Thoughts on Gerrard…
The new Villa boss had seen his name linked with the previously vacant Newcastle United job, but nothing serious ever came of those links. Meanwhile, after a Europa League victory, the man himself even asked a reporter, ‘do I look happy?‘ when talking about his future, only to then leave his role a few weeks later.
So that may be something Villa have to be wary of if a club like Liverpool show an interest in him replacing Jurgen Klopp in the near future – something former teammate John-Arne Riise has backed him to do – so his head may be easily turned by other potential suitors in the future.
However, it seems Stewart believes those chances may be dented if Gerrard’s time at Villa does not go to plan, and it is easy to see how this move could be seen as a big risk for the former Reds midfielder to have taken.
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