Like most sports, the beautiful game is very fond of clichés.
One of my favourites is “he has lost the dressing room”.
That sometimes conjures up the image of some hapless coach who has misplaced it and is rummaging around in the stadium trying to retrace his steps.
A bit like me and beanie hats…
Well at Tynecastle after they had been dumped out of the cup Mr Gerrard did not lose the dressing room.
In fact, he knew exactly where it was.
However, he told his management team that under no circumstances were they to go into to where Sevco’s Gumtree Galacticos were applying their personal grooming products.
Only one of the backroom staff tried to resist this order.
However, Mr Let’s Go made it clear to him that he would brook no opposition on this matter.
The post-match interviews were, unlike the Sevco players, pure box office.
He couldn’t have made it any clearer for the Stenography Corps if he had borrowed their crayons and battered it up on the tactics board.
In the immediate aftermath of the game, Mr Gerrard clearly distanced himself and his management team, from the players.
He stated that he had provided them (the players) with everything they had needed on and off the field.
Yet two years on he didn’t see any improvement.
That’s pretty damning stuff for am manger to say PUBLICLY about his charges.
It sounded like a breakup, the end of the affair…
Of course, one of the key tasks of any football manager is to control the wayward star in the squad.
The guy with issues who can deliver on the field.
For Gerrard and Sevco that player is Alfredo.
There is little doubt in my mind that a more experienced manager would have got to grips with this Poundland Balotelli without too much trouble.
However, Alfie has been a conundrum that has consistently confounded Stevie G.
If it all comes down to the numbers at Sevco then one of them is the Terrible Twos…
The striker has been indulged to the extent that the has ben allowed to act out like a grumpy toddler.
On that subject, I was sent this piece of award-winning succulence this morning and it did seem rather familiar.
Indeed, this uncanny coincidence was not lost on Fitba Twitter.
Ouch!
As I had previous reported here, the Sevco High Command are in a quandary over Alfredo.
They could unleash the high-Level hounds and trash his rep among the klan.
However, that would further reduce his putative market value.
After all Alfie’s ego problem in part stemmed from the PR campaign to punt him to another club, any club, for big money.
The collateral damage of this award-winning pish was that the player himself believed the hype and became increasingly difficult to handle.
Add to the mix a rookie manager and you have the current shambles.
What’s it all about Stevie?
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It must also be said that Steven Gerrard is doing a grand job. Compared to his first season, which was an improvement on the club’s previous couple of seasons, Gerrard is in the same league position but with a higher points per game average, he went one better in the League Cup, reaching the final, matched the Scottish Cup by getting to the quarter finals and is in the last 16 of the Europa League.
Where’s the failure? Surely balanced journalists, rather than fans with laptops, would look at the facts?
Most club chairmen and boards would be very content with the direction of travel, except one! As I said earlier, this is all about the sense of entitlement, coupled with the obsession to stop 9 in a row, which is eating them alive.
What it is all about is the sense of entitlement that radiates from Ibrox.
The Scottish Cup represented their last realistic chance of domestic silverware and the reality is clearly dawning that not having as big a budget as Celtic confers a sporting advantage upon their Glasgow neighbours. They simply cannot handle it.
The prosaic fact of the matter is that Rangers lost away to a team 10 places below them in the league. On the same day, Liverpool lost away to a team 18 places below them in the league. These things happen. Klopp didn’t seem to mind too much Gerrard was crestfallen. Why? Because of the sense of entitlement.
This was no major cup shock. This was a loss to Heart of Midlothian – one of Scotland’s biggest clubs who had beaten the Ibrox side just a few weeks ago. They may be at the wrong end of the table but at a packed Tynecastle they can turn over anyone on the day – just as the likes of Hibernian and Aberdeen can on any given day. It is disgraceful journalism and an insult to these clubs to suggest they should lie down every time they face a team in light blue from Ibrox – especially in the cup which represents their best chance of silverware.
Get over it and lose the sense of entitlement. Well done to Hearts – and Watford.
Klopp wasn’t perturbed about the result because it will NOT make one iota of a difference to his team’s season. They are still 19 points clear in a title race which was effectively over months ago.
The scenario for sevco is very different. The result meant that their season, which two months ago to the day had them believing this was THEIR year, was effectively OVER at the end of February.
Okay they’re still in the Europa Cup. That guarantees one more bumper gate. They will also pull in a crowd for the home game against Celtic. They will be playing to dwindling crowds at the Dome of Debt for the rest of the season.
As Phil has regularly pointed out, they NEED match day revenue.
As Phil also says regularly, oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear!!
Poundland Balotelli!!. Oh ma sides!!!☘
Ah Phil,you really do have a way with words,the sentence ‘he couldn’t have made it any easier if he had borrowed the Stenography Corps crayons and battered it up on the tactics board’
Was a LOL moment for me,please keep these hilarious summations continue unabated…
What would we do for laughs without them,but,I think the sfa have ensured that scenario won’t arise.
I only know coaching from U6s to 18s and one thing the coaches would steer way clear off it giving assurances to players, parents/guardians etc that their boy would definitely play every game. No preferential treatment. Stevie being effectively a qualified under 18’s coach should have known this rule.
Add the fact he is working with mostly millionaires and it becomes more relevant not to show this bias. If a millionaire player does not like his gig he can sit out his contract or not try a leg until he is moved, usually at a loss to the club. Add their agents looking for a payday and telling average players they could be on Ronaldino wages.
You have got to have a professional detachment to each player but a healthy engagement to the whole team. It seems not the case down sevco way. Better a team of passionate triers than a team of fantastic lazy footballers.
Looks like battle lines could be drawn between Gerrard and Morelos.
Manager v. best player.
…and players rarely win in these contests…
Paul le Guen v Barry boy????
Steven Gerard is probably a long way behind Keith Jackson, the rest of the media, SPL, SFA, Uefa and the referees when it comes to “mollycoddling” Morelos.