Rangers manager Steven Gerrard has accomplished the first primary task of what he set out to achieve – to deliver the Scottish Premiership back to Ibrox as well as the honour of becoming a league title winner, putting some closure on ghosts of his past.
Gerrard is a winner, a leader and an inspiration. He doesn’t ask of others what he is not prepared to do himself.
This was evidenced in his long distinguished career as a player and he has followed through on that theme as a young manager, honing his trade in the process.
The Gers boss previously featured on the High Performance Podcast, with anchors Jake Humphrey and Professor Damian Hughes.
On this very informative and insightful pod, listeners are given ‘an intimate glimpse into the lives of high-achieving, successful individuals’.
Guests are selected from across the fields of sport, business, music and entertainment – they are united by their success and their excellence, revealing what it takes to get to the top and to stay there.
On the Steven Gerrard episode, the hosts talk to him about his life and career journey.
Inspecting on his early tenure as manager at Ibrox, the theme of culture is explored and the now Scottish Premiership winner expands on what he wanted from his players and how he would go about instigating success from within:
“Early on you talk about culture. You have standards on the training pitch. You have standards that you expect in a game. But it’s also a daily thing, what you’re asking the players. You know how they behave, what standards you expect of them,” said Gerrard
“The standards you believe in. Who are we representing? We’re representing Rangers, who were built on winning, and standards, and history, and tradition, and a lot of legends – managers and players have gone before us.”
“We have a responsibility to carry on that tradition and those standards.”
“We wanted to create a culture where it was a no-excuse culture. So yes, we’ll make the training ground better. We’ll make Ibrox better. We’ll get you better kit. We’ll get you better food. We’ll get you better. We’ll take the excuses away. But then you have to buy into having that responsibility and that accountability.”
“I’ll do everything I can to protect you and I’ll take as much responsibility as possible and take it away from you.”
“I want you to go and play with freedom, express yourselves and give me the best version of you. If we got that collectively around the group, or got the majority buying into that, there was no doubt Rangers was going to improve.”
“We also knew over a period of time, with what had been said to me by the board and the chairman, that we were gonna add players and recruit better players. That was music to my ears, to know we had the support of the board.”
Culture – performance – standards.
All three aspects have been in plentiful supply from the outset of the Gerrard era at Rangers but this season, excellence and consistency has been added to the demands as his team raised the bar significantly.
The will to win has been evident and they have all delivered, collectively.
With plenty left to play for this season, before we can even look to the future, the sun is shining on a bright new dawn at Ibrox.
Graeme Hanna
@graeme818
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