Are Gerrard and Ibrox on an inevitable collision course? Why do they believe he’s the only one who can stop Celtic?
Eric Knott 
Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images Sport
After the fixtures of the weekend just past, Scottish football has taken on an altogether different perspective.
Aberdeen can no longer be considered pretenders, a flash in the pan, or a team that was going to be found out sooner, or later.
They came to Celtic Park and they gave us one hell of a fight.
Aberdeen showed up for business, unlike the team in third place, who never showed up at all last September.
Jimmy Thelin has shown everyone at the weekend that he is a tactically astute coach.
I was at the game on Saturday, and I commented to my mate at half-time, saying that I had expected more fight from Aberdeen based on their results in the run up to facing us.
My mate said to me that he felt Aberdeen looked just like an average Scottish Premiership side in that first half.
My response was that we’d see what kind of tactician Thelin was in the second half.
And we did.
They organised themselves well, and picked us off on the counter for both of their goals.
Despite their third goal being disallowed, they took on a siege mentality.
They were going to hold what they had at Celtic Park, and they took what I thought, on balance, was a deserved point.
A lot of the decisions in that game have been well and truly discussed over the weekend, I’m not going to go over them again.
What I will say is this, I would be shocked on Wednesday week if the Ibrox side went to Pittodrie and beat Aberdeen on current form.
They couldn’t beat Kilmarnock yesterday, who were sitting ninth in the table.
So what hope do they have against a side that is unbeaten and so far this season?
Sitting joint top with us?
Last season, it was Aberdeen who brought an end to Michael Beale’s time at Ibrox, when they beat them 3-1 on their own patch.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if a defeat to Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Wednesday week delivered the same fate to Philippe Clement?
I know everyone is saying his position at Ibrox is safe.
That they can’t keep sacking managers a year into the role.
I mean, there isn’t actually a board there to sack Clement at the moment, is there?
But the natives are getting very, very restless.
And when the natives at Ibrox get restless, we all know what the end result usually is, don’t we?
Don’t you think, then, that it’s kind of coincidental that we’re seeing a lot of Steven Gerrard in the Scottish media these days?
Will his current woes in Saudi Arabia be the catalyst to a pathway back to Ibrox?
Where once he and the Govan club were a match made in heaven?
The Record is running with a story today about his travails at his current club, Al-Ittifaq.
Apparently, he’s not happy with the standard of refereeing over there.
And it was the ref’s fault that his side lost to 3-2 to Al-Orobah.
Of course, Gerrard has previous for blaming referees when things don’t go his way.
Remember his rant about referees after an opening day draw to, you guessed it, Aberdeen, in his first season at Ibrox?
I’m going to play Devil’s advocate here and suggest that the following is going to happen over the next ten days or so:
- Gerrard will lose again in Saudi Arabia, thus ramping up the pressure on him.
- Clement will lose against Aberdeen at Pittodrie on Wednesday week, thus ramping up the pressure on him.
- Both will lose their jobs as a result.
- Gerrard, with his nice big pay off, will leave Saudi Arabia, and when he gets back to good ‘ol Blighty, there will be a vacancy at his old club in Govan.
What do we think is going to happen then?
We all know their saviour and messiah will be welcomed back to Ibrox with open arms.
And you know what, I for one, would welcome it?
Because they all seem to believe over there that he is the only one who can stop Celtic.
Just because of one title win in a season where no fans were allowed to attend matches.
But hey, he did stop us doing ten in a row, didn’t he?
Which awarded him with martyrdom amongst the Ibrox faithful.
They’re raving about this on Follow Follow at the moment.
That and the fact that they need Real Raynjurz men at the club.
Well, when Clement goes, which seems inevitable now, they’ll have their real Raynjurz men when Alex Rae and Bazza Ferguson take over.
Then all they have to do is wait for the messiah to return from Saudi Arabia.
And then for his return to his spiritual home.
Where once again, all will be wonderful and good in the world.
Until they have to play football that is…
It’s always that pesky football that wrecks everything, isn’t it?
And Celtic, of course!
I can’t see Gerard ever being back at Sevco. He’s a chequebook manager and as the club doesn’t have a pot to piss in and with the Uefa FSR in place then he would be trawling the bargain basement which I can’t see him entertaining.
And finding out games still don’t finish on 80 mins. FUD!⁶
The mess ibrokes is in Gerrard won’t touch it with a barge pole. He was quick enough to get tae first time round.
Besides it will be fun watching them trying to recruit a manager, chairman, ceo,dof (when there’s no football to direct) and a head of academy.
It’s a complete circus over there.
They probably wouldn’t be able to afford Derek McInnes let alone Gerrard
They can’t afford to pay for a ceo,chairman or a dof 🍀🍀🍀🤣🤣🤣🤣
Learn to spell, Eric. It’s basic stuff, ffs
The devil himself wouldn’t touch that klub , their too far gone.
I deliberately withheld my comments after the 2-2 draw at Celtic Park, expecting the match at Rugby Park to be an unknown quantity, but favouring the visitors. I just don’t have a sufficient level of confidence in Celtic’s performances of late. Failing to protect a 2-goal lead at home is not good enough. Where is the consistency needed to offer some assurance of their ability. Even the 10 minute extra time didn’t prove to be enough as Celtic raced to the finishing line, as they tend to do, but at least getting something from it.
Mitov proved to be the man of the match for me,although Aberdeen’s gameplay didn’t impress me. They just exercised two distinct attributes, aggression and determination, nothing more, helped by our poor defence, who helped them with two soft goals. What credentials has Jimmy Thelin got other than a rough and ready style, unbeaten in 14 games, but with as many yellow cards to prove it. Celtic were lucky in getting one point instead of three. It is clear to me that Aberdeen aren’t just hopeful of splitting the Glasgow sides to finish second, as has been suggested by bloggers. They want the first spot! That leaves the rest of us to grapple for runners-up.
It doesn’t bear thinking about our plan for our game in Lombardy. Our current back four will face another hammering, unless they can snap out of their poor spells of utter laxity.
What happens at Ibrox is of no interest to me. Thank you.
There has been a huge clamour for Gerrard ever since the summer. I welcome it, as I think their problems run much deeper than changing head coach. But I think the Rangers are too far gone to offer Gerrard any real cash or any tangible hope of over hauling Celtic. He may go back there one day but not for years to come until they have some stability and enough of a war chest for him to work with. I doubt he will be offered a 3 year project again. The trouble with Phoenix FC is that their business model in the entire 21st century has been to consistently sell their Future for the present to try to regain control of Scottish Football. That non Legit model has failed.The future is here. The Future sucks, and the Future Always Comes.
HLSsays:
Learn to spell, Eric. It’s basic stuff, ffs
Usually acronyms are in capitals. You also forgot a full stop at the end of your sentence.