RANGERS manager Steven Gerrard says that football is littered with people that “talk b******s”, and that is why he adopts the straight-talking style of his predecessors Walter Smith and Graeme Souness.
Former Rangers assistant Archie Knox had said during the week that he saw Gerrard as an ‘old-school’ manager, and the former Liverpool and England captain agrees that he is cut from a similar cloth as some of the men Knox worked alongside.
He believes that too many coaches these days over-complicate the game, and that he is getting success from this group of Rangers players by being straight-forward and candid about what is expected of them.
“Football doesn’t change,” Gerrard said. “It’s exactly the same as it was 100 years ago.
“I’m telling these players now what I got told in 1999 by Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez. It doesn’t change, winning teams have the same principles, the same tempo, desire, commitment, it’s all the same
“Some coaches try to overcomplicate things, they’ve got the gift of the gab and the silver tongue, but I haven’t. I just tell you how it is, I tell my team how it is and what’s expected at this club and we will go into these tests and give it a go.
“I’m not going to stand here and try and change the game of football, it’s being going on long before I was created.
“I have listened to certain people throughout my career and they just talked bollocks. They did. They are about, they are in the game, the game is littered with a lot of them. I don’t. I don’t complicate it.
“I just say the same things that Walter Smith said, or Graeme Souness did. I bet if you compared the three team talks there wouldn’t be many differences.”
Gerrard has meanwhile admitted that it will be difficult to predict what sort of challenge his side will face from Spartak Moscow in tonight’s Europa League group match at Ibrox, with the Russians having this week sacked manager Massimo Carrera and replaced him with fitness coach Raul Riancho. Previous opponents Rapid Vienna also fired their head coach immediately prior to losing in Glasgow three weeks ago.
“It’s slightly different to the situation with Rapid as Spartak have made a promotion from within,” Gerrard said.
“The last time it was an entirely new manager, so we were expecting a different philosophy and an entirely different way of playing.
“It’s nothing we can control, we have to look at ourselves.”
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