Former international team-mate of Steven Gerrard, Kevin Phillips, has praised the leadership group at Ibrox after the club announced that the players and senior staff would accept a 50% pay deferral to allow non-playing employees to still receive 100% of their wages.
Speaking to Football Insider, Phillips details how this is representative of what the Ibrox gaffer is trying to build at the club.
So what has Phillips said?
The retired striker singled out Steven Davis, Allan McGregor, Ryan Jack and skipper James Tavernier for special praise as the players responsible for presenting the deal:
“Credit to those players. They would not have done it unless everyone was comfortable with it financially.
“It tells you that they have a great team spirit up there. They have all bought into it collectively. It is a sign of a good team spirit.
“Stevie knows you can only be successful when you have a group of players that buy into everything. You need to have a good camp. It only takes one or two bad eggs to spoil it.”
So is Phillips correct?
Rangers fans know only too well following the fall-out from 2012 how players can react when faced with financial uncertainty and have the wrong people advising them – just ask Steven Naismith and Steven Whittaker about how popular they are when returning to their old club.
The Ibrox club are well on track to return to self sufficiency financially and the coronavirus outbreak will have dented this recovery, however, with additional funding in the offing, there remains no immediate threat.
The players were reported as being the ones who led the initiative and have shown an insight into how tightly knit the club is, Phillips is correct, it would only take one or two players to oppose this for it to break down.
Although some non-playing staff have been furloughed they will still receive their full wage, compare this to across the city where Celtic have also taken up the government scheme but their players remain on full pay – a club like no other indeed.
Whilst players at Parkhead remain silent, Alfredo Morelos has been shown to be a true inspiration, delivering food parcels to badly affected neighbourhoods in his homeland, yet another indication of the striker’s real personality rather than the one painted by the Scottish media and pundits.