Gerrard doesn't want patience from Rangers fans

[craig 5,199]

1 hour ago, Bill said:

Any feel good factor that might have arrived with Gerrard is very fragile. It won’t take much to upset it and there’s no point wishing it were otherwise. Patience might be needed but it won’t be forthcoming. It is what it is. 

Just so long as we fans realise that we will be the creators of our own demise should we continually look to chop and change on the basis we don't get instant success.

 

There are a number of reasons Rangers are the most successful club in the country - one of those was our tendency to remain faithful to managers and the belief they would get it right.  Chopping and changing is unlikely to work when you are significantly inferior financially.

 

 

 

[Bill 13,717]

19 minutes ago, craig said:

Just so long as we fans realise that we will be the creators of our own demise should we continually look to chop and change on the basis we don't get instant success.

 

There are a number of reasons Rangers are the most successful club in the country - one of those was our tendency to remain faithful to managers and the belief they would get it right.  Chopping and changing is unlikely to work when you are significantly inferior financially.

 

 

 

All well and good but the other feature of this club in recent years has been a propensity to appoint managers who could not and did not deliver success. Are you suggesting it would have been more profitable to have stuck with them even longer and, not being blessed with second sight, why would we treat Gerrard differently? I will concede the interpretation of what constitutes success can be a flexible and developing concept but in the end it's defined by trophies.

Edited July 9, 2018 by Bill

[craig 5,199]

2 hours ago, Bill said:

All well and good but the other feature of this club in recent years has been a propensity to appoint managers who could not and did not deliver success. Are you suggesting it would have been more profitable to have stuck with them even longer and, not being blessed with second sight, why would we treat Gerrard differently? I will concede the interpretation of what constitutes success can be a flexible and developing concept but in the end it's defined by trophies.

I think you missed something in my original post where I said that Murty and Pedro had to go because they were THAT bad.  I would argue that it was a lack of patience or "long-game" vision which saw us hire those people in the first place - looking for the silver bullet and hitting success immediately.

 

Murty had never had a top team job and was mediocre in his 1st stint as interim manager

Pedro lost the dressing room quickly and looked out of his depth too

Warburton - looked good 1st season, 2nd season poor - but was working his ticket so probably had to go.

 

With Warburton I felt the Board were making a longer-term decision - but who knows.  With Pedro I get the feeling that the decision was hopeful rather than with expectation (I know of a few coaches who sat in on his presentation when he was appointed and they were rolling their eyes as they felt it was shite, the typical "laptop manager" - looked good on powerpoint but made little sense on the field of play). 

 

Hindsight is all too easy, as you say, but a sign of success for Gerrard in his first season shouldn't, IMO, be silverware - it should be progress, getting closer to Celtic physically, mentally and in terms of points.  Also finishing second but, just as importantly, for me at least, would be a clear visual impression of how his team will look to play with each player busting a gut to be successful.

 

We don't have Celtic's money to splash around so we MUST have our players working harder such that the sum of the parts is greater than the parts themselves.  We have little other option. 

 

After the 2018/19 season - having had a full season to assess his own squad but also that of the opposition so that he knows what to expect when we play them, I would be expecting him to be pushing closer - he will have had a season to work our who will be good enough, who has the heart and desire for it, who has the physical and mental capabilities to do so - and can then revolve his squad.

 

I would be surprised if (m)any of us believed that even Pep could have won us the league last year - and due to lack of silverware he likely would have been sacked - if that would be the case it will be nothing but a never-ending revolving door with players coming and going and there being no stability at all.  That isn't the way to success.  But Gerrard also has to improve this team, this squad, their technical, mental and physical capabilities - these are things which are tangible so it should be fairly easy to determine if we are seeing progress.

 

Success, ultimately at Rangers, means trophies - but we are in a different era now from the 70's and 80's when we went 9 years without the title - we bought our way back to success then (to be fair, it was also at a time which coincided with Celtic being a basket case) whereas now, unless we get significant investment, we will need to play our way out rather than buy it.  Can Gerrard do that ?  I guess we will see.

 

Here's hoping - because whilst we may see success differently, we both want the exact same thing.  Trophies and, in particular, 55.

[JFK-1 1,675]

So what will we be saying if for example they hit 6 again on Thursday night just as they did against Bury? Just more inferior opposition?

[Bill 13,717]

9 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

So what will we be saying if for example they hit 6 again on Thursday night just as they did against Bury? Just more inferior opposition?

What will you be saying?

[RTB2004 58]

Kind of agree with him, I can definitely see where he is coming from when he says this. The club hasn't won a league title since the 2010/11 season, nor have we won any decent silverware since then. I can defo see where he's coming from though because we as Rangers fans have had to endure a plethora of mediocre managers in recent years which just haven't been up to the standard that the Rangers job demands. 

 

However, my biggest fear for this season is that Gerrard ends up hitting a bit of blip, something like a few bad results in a row. At which point you'll probably have fans calling for his head. Again, I can understand this impatience when you consider what we've been through since administration. However, as many have already said, we can't keep having this revolving door policy when it comes to managers. I agree though, Pedro and Murty were genuinely awful and had to go. Murty looked like he lost it after that 3-2 defeat in March. What this club needs is a degree of stability and if we keep hiring managers one summer and then sacking them by Christmas then Celtic getting 10 in a row will be almost certain I think. I say give Gerrard the full season (unless he's so awful that we haven't won a game in months, although I highly doubt he can be any worse than Pedro or Murty). Realistically we should be looking to be competitive with Celtic this season and aiming to gradually close the gap. Maybe even win a trophy along the way and finish a comfortable, competitive 2nd place. Then the season after we may be able to seriously challenge for the title. The club needs stability and we're not going to have that if we keep chopping and changing managers as someone here already said.

[craig 5,199]

32 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

So what will we be saying if for example they hit 6 again on Thursday night just as they did against Bury? Just more inferior opposition?

Probably.  The proof of how far this squad has come in pre-season, under new management, will be marked by our first away trip in the SPFL this season....  That will give us a proper indicator, though not empirical and would be better looked at over the course of a full round of SPFL matches.

[Bill 13,717]

I think we’re losing the path here. The issue isn’t whether or not Gerrard will get time in the job but whether fans will show patience. 

[JFK-1 1,675]

21 minutes ago, Bill said:

What will you be saying?

Undecided. If we slaughter the sheep in their sheep pen on August 5th I might think we're going places. But then again I thought we were better than them last season and simply didn't play to capabilities.

 

Gerrard is still an unknown managerial quantity but I doubt he will tolerate slackers not fighting for every ball. That alone is an improvement on top of what appears to be a better squad.

[JFK-1 1,675]

2 minutes ago, craig said:

Probably.  The proof of how far this squad has come in pre-season, under new management, will be marked by our first away trip in the SPFL this season....  That will give us a proper indicator, though not empirical and would be better looked at over the course of a full round of SPFL matches.

 

4 minutes ago, craig said:

Probably.  The proof of how far this squad has come in pre-season, under new management, will be marked by our first away trip in the SPFL this season....  That will give us a proper indicator, though not empirical and would be better looked at over the course of a full round of SPFL matches.

Somewhat funny. I was typing my reply to Bill as you were posting this and I too referred to visiting the sheep pen.