WHEN Alex Miller first arrived at Liverpool back in 1999 he was asked to cast his expert eye over the club structure and first team squad and report back to manager Gerard Houllier with his thoughts.
The Scot, who had just been appointed director of scouting at Anfield, made an immediate and bold assertion about a teenage midfielder who had just broken into the first team when he did so.
“I told Gerard then that he had a future England captain on his hands,” said Miller yesterday as he recalled his first encounter with one Seven Gerrard.
His initial impressions, though, were subsequently proved correct. Gerrard went on to enjoy a stellar career. He also skippered his country, who he played for on no fewer than 114 occasions, at the Euro 2012 and 2014 World Cup finals.
So it is, given how accurate his prediction about that lanky youth was shown to be, worth asking how he feels the UEFA Cup and Champions League winner will fare as a manager in future.
His former club Rangers have spoken to the Liverpool youth coach about becoming the permanent replacement for Pedro Caixinha in the summer.
The bombshell has divided opinion among the Ibrox club’s supporters. Many are dead against such an inexperienced man being brought in. Some believe the arrival of such a high-profile figure would be hugely positive.
Miller, now enjoying retirement after spending nearly 50 years in the professional game in a variety of different guises around the world, is confident Gerrard will fare as well in the dugout as he did on the pitch.
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The former Morton, St Mirren, Hibernian and Aberdeen manager believes he has many personal qualities and strengths which will enable him to replicate the success he enjoyed as a player.
“He would be a great appointment,” said Miller. “He is a great football guy. He is a great professional. He is really conscientious about everything he does.
“The most important thing is that he has done everything at the highest level. He has great experience of a very high standard of football.
“He will definitely demand high standards from his players no matter who they are. They will always have to give 100 per cent when they played for him.
“I think he will be very fair. I think the players would want to play for them. That is the most important thing as a coach and a manager.
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“You can do everything you like, but if the players don’t want to play for you then you are nothing. He is a good leader. He would lead the players who play for him. Tactically, he will be sound too.
“I don’t know if having been a captain is necessarily a benefit to a player when he moves into coaching. But as a player he certainly took on other responsibilities which were in everyone’s interests, not just his own. He wasn’t selfish.
“He was very open with every other player. He was an open book. He was very friendly with Jamie Carragher. They came through the ranks together at Liverpool. They were instrumental in a lot of the success the club enjoyed.
“When you are in a team at the top level for as long as Steven then he is going to offer his opinions on where the team has a problem and how to solve that problem. Doing that lends itself to coaching.
“He is very, very good with younger players. He has got a lot of time for them because he remembers when he was a young player breaking through.
“He was just a normal lad who had come out of a Liverpool suburb and wanted to be the best.”
He added: “When I first came to Liverpool Gerard Houllier asked me to look at the whole set-up at the club and squad, make observations and tell him what I think.
“I told Gerard then that he had a future England captain on his hands. Steven was only breaking into the team too.
“His qualities shone through. He had power, he had pace, he had a tremendous eye for a goal, he had a great winning mentality, he drove himself to be the best.
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“To be fair to Steven, he always rose to the big occasion. He scored a lot of goals in big important games. He always came through and delivered.
“He is up there in terms of ability and quality with anybody I ever worked with either as a player or a coach. He was excellent, one of the very best.”
Miller, who was in the technical area when Liverpool came from 3-0 down to beat AC Milan in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul, feels Gerrard will be able to draw on advice and tips from some of the best coaches in football when he moves into management.
“Steven worked with Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson and Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool and then in the England squad he worked with Sven-Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello and Roy again,” he said. “They are top coaches.
“He will have observed their strengths and weaknesses. That will help him in his venture to be a manager himself. He will have picked things up from all of them. You don’t play for the time he has without doing that.”
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