STEVEN GERRARD’S far from the only one at Ibrox who needs to do some serious soul-searching.
He’s just the only one with the balls to admit it.
Gerrard has admitted he needs to think hard about his futureCredit: Alamy Live News
That’s the difference between this dugout rookie and too many of those around him, though.
He fronts up, while they hide behind him.
So after the latest in a catalogue of calamities leaves them empty-handed for another domestic season, all the talk’s about whether Gerrard will choose to stay or go once his head stops spinning like a tumble dryer.
Like Rangers’ problems are as simple as that.
Rangers star Ianis Hagi bares the disappointment of the cup exitCredit: PA:Press Association
Like if he stays they will put all those calamities behind them, and if he goes they will just snap their fingers and unveil the next marquee manager.
Like hell, Rangers, like hell. Yes, Gerrard has to take his fair share of the blame for them falling short time and again.
Yes, it’s forever been the case that the buck stops at the guy on the touchline with the blazer and the brogues.
But he could walk today and they could bring in Pep, Pochettino or Sir Alex and it wouldn’t change the one thing, which, more than anything, has held them back every since their return from footballing and financial oblivion.
Namely, their attitude.
Rangers are a club weighed down by a sense of entitlement that permeates from boardroom to stands to the pitch itself.
The arrogance that leaves them unable to believe it when things don’t go their way, even though it keeps on happening, and even though it’s pretty much always their own fault.
God knows Gerrard’s tried to make them see sense often enough. He’s called his players out countless times for lacking the steel that turns runners-up into champions.
Yet not only doesn’t the message seem to seep through, no one else around him seems prepared to back him up.
The people who run the show are too busy fighting fires over shares and sponsorship and merchandise to offer the guy their backing in a crisis.
Their fans are too concerned with caning critics of their club to see what’s in front of their faces.
As for the players? Seems they are up for it when the odds are against them, but don’t seem to give enough of a toss on the kind of days and night that should be their bread and butter.
Gerrard screams from the touchline as his side are put out of the Scottish CupCredit: Willie Vass – The Sun
As Connor Goldson said after the first-leg comeback against Braga, you can’t build a season on the odd half-hour of magic.
But you can wreck one on too many hour-and-a-halfs of murder, and no matter how hard Gerrard tries, he simply can’t tip the balance between these extremes.
For every performance like Celtic away or those two wins over Portugal’s form team, they revert to type with one like Saturday at Tynecastle — and it kills them.
Question is, how many of those who played on Saturday night spent the weekend fretting over their futures?
How many on the board cancelled all plans with the family to search their souls?
And as for the most high-profile guy who didn’t play as their Cup run was ended by Premiership’s injury-ravaged bottom side?
You really do have to wonder what goes on in the mind of Alfredo Morelos.
Rangers star Alfredo Morelos was axed from Gerrard’s matchday squad for breaching team disciplinary rulesCredit: Willie Vass – The Sun
If you were the one who’d been stupid enough to get yourself suspended for a crucial European tie, and if the gaffer had then let you use the time off to fly home and visit your sick mum, wouldn’t you have vowed to come back all guns blazing?
Of course you would. You’d have been straight back in for training on Wednesday, as Morelos promised he would, and bust a gut to be sharp as a tack come kick-off at Tynecastle.
Not this guy. Instead, he wanders back in a day late and leaves his manager facing the classic dilemma of whether to pick his best players and deal with the issue later, or drop him and lose their main goal threat.
It’s to his credit as a man-manager Gerrard did the right thing and axed Morelos. Yet it’s another black mark on his CV they went there minus a 29-goal marksman and lost.
Morelos being absent wasn’t the only reason they lost, the poverty of their performance was there for all to see, a big bag of dismal that surprised no one with a memory longer than that of a goldfish.
No wonder Gerrard couldn’t bring himself to speak to the players at time-up. No wonder he admitted to being at his lowest ebb in the job.
A man so indomitable as a player looks beaten down by it all.
His words, the look on his face, his whole demeanour screams of a man who’s only held together now by pride, a pride instilled in him over 20-odd years at Liverpool.
A pride that hauled his mates there back from the brink of defeat time and again to lift trophies.
A pride sadly lacking in too many of the men he puts out on that pitch week after week. Not to mention one key man who’s missing from the teamsheet way too often.
Bottom line? You’re left wondering if some guys in that Rangers team really can be a**** giving their best. It’s them or you, Steven. Soul-searching time is ticking…
Steven Gerrard threatens to QUIT Rangers in ‘next 24-48 hours’ after shock Scottish Cup exit to Hearts
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
