The £145m “true reason” for Gerrard Gers departure revealed

For some, when Steven Gerrard left Rangers to join Aston Villa, it came as something as a surprise, for others, the writing had been on the wall for some time.

A moan about not spending money after losing to Malmo in Champions League qualifying fell mainly on deaf ears – we were 1-0 up playing against 10 men for the whole of the second half – and, after only signing players on freee transfers in the summer, there was every chance he was growing frustrated at the resources available to him.

Speaking to Football Insider, football finance expert, Kieran Maguire explains, in simple terms why Aston Villa was an attractive offer despite their lowly league position:

“The most recent account from a non-Covid year show Rangers spent £11m in 2019-20 compared to £156m at Villa.

“It does allow you to fish in a different pond. Steven Gerrard wants to progress and that might be the true reason he’s chosen to depart.

“He will be disappointed that they didn’t qualify for the Champions League. He may feel that’s linked with their failure to recruit last summer.

“Having achieved that title triumph, he believed there was scope to grow the club further. But that would have required investment.

“Steven Gerrard is a smart individual. He will be aware of the budget that was available for them

“He may have felt he was limited in terms of what he could do.”

The “bigger” club debate is one that we have seen on social media over the last week, when even John Hartson claims that Rangers could fit Villa “in their back pocket” you know that it’s a pretty one-sided argument.

What they do have though is an obviously bigger budget off the back of the Premier League’s TV deal, their revenue is almost double Rangers off the back of this, and yet, without it, they make nowhere near the same as us from other commercial and match day income.

It’s every manager’s dream though to have unlimited resources and that is what Gerrard will now have at Villa, the only problem is, he won’t have any excuses for his failures.