STEVEN Gerrard’s first task at Rangers should be finding someone to run the Ibrox dressing room as effectively as Scott Brown does across the city at Celtic.

Or as he himself used to do for that matter under Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool. That is the opinion of Kevin Thomson, the former Rangers and Hibs midfielder, who has been close friends with the Parkhead captain ever since their time as teenage contract rebels at Easter Road.

Now an ambitious young coach in his own right – he coaches the youths at Auchenhowie and runs his own grassroots academy on the other side of the M8 - Thomson welcomes the arrival of Gerrard at Ibrox this summer and feels that one of the first items on his to do list must be finding a midfield enforcer capable of mixing it in the heat of an Old Firm midfield, not to mention setting the standards at the club which he recalled from his time working under Walter Smith.

While experienced duo Kenny Miller and Lee Wallace exert influence at Ibrox, at times towards the end of last season the Rangers dressing room appeared to be in disarray.

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“You need good changing rooms at good clubs,” said Thomson. “You look at Scotty [Brown], no-one can tell me he doesn’t do a good job across the city. Steven has done the same thing for every dressing room he was in at Liverpool, that’s the sign of a good captain. He’ll also be looking for someone that can do that for Rangers.

“There needs to be a spark,” added the 33-year-old. “It’s okay having that within the manager, but there needs to be a spark among the players. The standards within the club when I was there were simply expected of you. There were no ‘rules’. It was assumed that you would be on time, wouldn’t muck about on your phone, you would train hard. That’s the environment Walter [Smith] created and those will be things Steven has done his whole life and will expect that of the players. Those players will need to rise to that challenge.

“Scott Brown is fundamental to the way Celtic work. If you get on top of him and make it difficult for him then they aren’t as good a team. That’s the challenge for every player that comes up against them, whether it’s Rangers, Hibs, Hearts or Aberdeen. If you can make it difficult for him, that’s their lynchpin. I’m pretty sure that’s something Steven will be focusing on when the big games roll around. I had a good record against Scotty personally. I think I played against him eight or nine times and I think I was only on the wrong end once. I used to wind him up about that at times, but he’s obviously got a far better record than me now! It’s not an argument any more. But that’s the challenge. If there are young boys breaking though, I would be saying ‘there is your benchmark’.”

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Plenty of dealings with Brown then, even if Thomson’s only dealings with Gerrard to date involved attempting to get close to him during a 4-0 pre-season friendly at Ibrox in August 2008. “They were beating us 1-0 at half time and we changed the whole team at half-time and they beat us 4-0 in the end,” recalled Thomson. “He played in the first half and I played against him. How did I do? I got on alright, I tried to kick him a couple of times! No, he was good, a brilliant, brilliant player. It was pre-season, we played Liverpool one year and Chelsea the other - you always want to test yourself against the best. He was right up there.”

That same self belief the Liverpudlian once displayed as a player now carries him into a baptism of fire as a manager. Transitioning, like Thomson, from a youth coaching role, it may actually be easier for Gerrard to revert to what he knows best.

“It’s a big first job for him, but that’s great for me to see as a young coach,” said Thomson. “Things are changing, aren’t they? Frank Lampard just got a job, so did Joey Barton, so people are coming out of the game and being given opportunities.

“When you become a top player, you believe in yourself,” Thomson added. “People might think that is arrogant or you are too big for your boots, but if we don’t believe in ourselves, then no-one else will. He [Gerrard] will need to believe in himself, stick his chest out like he did through his whole playing career. I’d do the same as a manager and I don’t think he’ll see anything any different as a manager than he did as a player.”

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If Rangers need to show more backbone to prolong their challenge to Celtic, it all starts from this central spine. “Whether it’s a centre back or a centre-forward, I always think that having a spine of a team is really important,” said Thomson. “When you look back to the players that Celtic have had. They’ve had [Victor] Wanyama in there, they’ve had Scotty, they’ve had [Virgil] Van Dijk, Fraser Forster. There has been a spine right through their team in different eras, successful eras. Even players like Joe Ledley did really well in the Champions League.

“When you revert back to the last time Rangers had successful teams, they had the same,” he added. “You need to have a good basis of six or seven key players who are playing every week. You are obviously going to rotate your squad, but that’s what we had.

“In Walter’s team, we had eight or nine players who played every week. Wee Nacho [Novo] would come in, [Steven] Naisy would come in, [Kyle] Lafferty would come in, [Jean-Claude] Darcheville would start, but wouldn’t play in Europe.

“So you have a rotation but you have that basis of a team that play every week. Effectively that’s what Celtic have got now.”

**Kevin Thomson was speaking at the Scottish FA UEFA B Licence taking place at Oriam, Edinburgh