WHEN Steven Gerrard took on the Rangers job, he knew he would be tasked with nursing a wounded animal back to health. But he had no idea of the depth of pain Rangers supporters were feeling until he stared it right in the face.
The seven years that had followed the financial meltdown of 2012 had brought only a few moments of relief from a new reality of humiliations, embarrassing results and false dawns. It is said that Rangers supporters will never accept failure, but they had been browbeaten over that period to expect it.
But now, under Gerrard’s stewardship, there is a spring back in the step of the Ibrox faithful at last. And if he could deliver silverware, the Rangers manager knows he will have finally put a smile back on the faces of those who he works to serve.
“We would hope it would be the catalyst for a different era,” Gerrard said. “The club has been fragile in recent years and from what I hear over the last 12 months and have seen from afar, it has been very up and down.
“When you start something fresh you try to build momentum and togetherness. You try to start a journey. You hope that journey takes you to places you want to get to, places where the fans want to get to, and where the club has belonged many years ago.
“Just having conversations with the players that had been round here for a while, staff, not necessarily just Mark [Allen] and the board [made me sense that fragility]. As soon as I arrived in Glasgow, you could see it in people who work in the environment.
“In the faces of Rangers fans, you could see - I don't know whether desperation is the right word - but you could see a lot of pain. They are craving good times here and thankfully we have had some OK times and some good times so far."
A triumph over Aberdeen in today’s Betfred Cup semi-final at Hampden would surely be better than OK. But while Gerrard is trying to temper expectations, he concedes that seeing Rangers in a final would be licence for their fans to start to dream of the glory days once again.
“We are on the right way, but nothing would be better than winning a semi-final and getting the chance to play in a final,” he said. “I don’t want to take about silverware just yet. It is still early. But, hopefully if we get through this tough test at the weekend we can start thinking big.
“I’m here for [the fans]. I don’t want to sound cheesy by saying that, but I’ve come to Rangers to win for Rangers.
“I respect the club and understand the club. Every decision I make, and every time I walk through the training ground or the stadium, it is for the fans and to get good times back here.
“[Seven years without a trophy] is too long, but the circumstances are what they are. For a set of supporters like this and a club of this size it has been too long.”
With so much focus being put on Rangers’ European run this season, might there be a question over whether Gerrard would rather silverware or progression from the group stages of the Europa League? Well, no, as it turns out.
"A trophy all day long,” he said. “People only remember trophies.”
And Gerrard’s aim is to give the Rangers support something to remember at Hampden this evening. He never played at Scotland’s national stadium, but he is sure that with the increased allocation now given to his club’s fans, those on the famous sloped terraces will be doing their part.
His job will be to keep a lid on his players, and make sure that they don’t get too wrapped up in the emotion from the stands, something he managed to do in his own playing days.
And Gerrard thinks that rather than hindering them physically, the quick turnaround from Thursday’s game against Spartak Moscow may well help them in that regard.
“I was fine [before semi-finals],” he said. “I looked forward to them. I never really got nervous. I got excited more, probably sometimes too excited.
“I was never someone who suffered from nerves. I was nervous around the Champions League final, but more in the build-up. On the day, I was fine. It was just waiting for it to come around.
“We haven’t really had time to focus too much on this game as we have had to prepare for Hamilton and Spartak, which is probably a good thing for the players. We go right in with belief and confidence we can get the job done, but it's a big opponent, a good team, a team that finished above us last year. But I still feel we have enough to get the job done.
“We will not mention Thursday win, lose or draw. We never used it at Pittodrie and we never really used it as an excuse at Pittodrie when we played 78 minutes with 10 men.
“We won’t focus on excuses round here, we'll just focus on the game."
What Rangers don’t have is their preferred striker, with Alfredo Morelos missing through suspension. In fact, they don’t even have their second choice, with Kyle Lafferty also ruled out.
Gerrard isn’t perturbed by that prospect though, believing he has come up with a way to cope with the lack of firepower at his disposal.
"I've got a good idea,” he said. “It's not perfect to have your two strikers out who have contributed a lot, especially in the final third. We still believe we have enough to go and do it. It's an opportunity for someone else to come into the team and do well.
“We have already spoken to the players on what we're looking for and told them the formation we are going to be using and nothing really changes for us in terms of preparation just because we have a couple of people missing.
“We prepare as normal for a big game.”
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