Pedro Caixinha said a lot of things in his sort tenure as Rangers manager, but rarely was he more accurate than when he referred to teams having a “cycle” and that nothing lasts forever.
As it was, he got the prediction of when Aberdeen’s cycle was going to come to an end pretty much spot on but for our own deficiencies dragging it out a little longer that it should have.
What he was right about though is that after three years of gradually building a squad, the worst thing a team can do is rest on it’s laurels and just assume success will continue, which is where Steven Gerrard finds himself now.
There’s no doubt that he missed the influence of Ryan Jack and Glen Kamara in midfield, his go to pair alongside Steven Davis for such high profile games, that he saw fit to promote Scott Wright to start the biggest game of his career was also questionable, the manager himself hinting at such in his pre-match interview.
The Gers gaffer has gradually become more pro-active with his substitutions, a fault that haunted him in his first year or two, but perhaps he needs to be more ruthless with his squad now, loyalty is admirable, but not if it is to the detriment of the club as a whole.
Now that we are out of the Champions League we need to look at what is best for the club, not the players.
If Connor Goldson doesn’t want to stay beyond this season, sell him and buy Danilho Doekhi at Vitesse Arnhem. We could easily turn a profit on what we paid for Goldson and get his replacement in for less, making money on both sides of the deal.
What should we do with Goldson?
Sell
Keep
With Glen Kamara, it’s clear that he isn’t going to spend his whole career at Rangers, and with two years left on his current contract, he will never be more valuable, especially after such a successful European Championships. It might not be huge, but we could still sell Kamara, buy Joey Veerman and be left with a decent amount in our back pocket given the fee we originally paid for the Finland international.
This is what the future of our club looks like, player sales to negate qualifying for the Champions League or Europa League. Obviously this season has the financial back drop of Covid-19 still hanging over it but we know this is how it has to be.
Gerrard was ruthless as a player, can he be ruthless as a manager?