Steven Gerrard is back in the Premier League.

 

Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard is back in the Premier League, but not to the Merseyside club. The ex-Liverpool captain is back as the manager of Aston Villa.

The Villains were looking to have a productive season this year after selling Grealish to Manchester City for £100m. They signed a plethora of players with this money, which included the likes of Danny Ings, Emi Buendía and Leon Bailey.

However, Villa haven’t had a great start to the season. They are 16th in the league, having lost 7 out of their 11 games, which led to the sacking of their manager Dean Smith during the final international break of the year.

Steven Gerrard has arrived at Aston Villa on the back off taking Rangers to their first Scottish Premier League title in nine years. Let’s take a look at what Stevie G will be able to bring to the Villa team.

 

Gerrard’s reign with Rangers

Steven Gerrard’s appointment for the Scottish giants took place in 2018. His appointment was an interesting one, as it was his first professional managerial job. However, his leadership qualities had always been visible on the pitch, and he was aware that the project he was taking up at Rangers would be quite a task, a task that he performed very well.

In his three and a half years as The Gers’ manager, Gerrard was able to win the Scottish Premiership title in his final season, and it was a very important title as it stopped their rivals, Celtic, from winning their tenth consecutive Premiership title.

Gerrard joined Rangers in 2018 and brought with him Premier League players like Scott Arfield, Allan McGregor, Jermain Defoe and Jon Flanagan. He was coming into a difficult job, as Celtic had been clear of Rangers in the past few years.

Both times in his first two seasons, Gerrard managed to keep Rangers tied with Celtics on the same number of points going into the winter break. An accumulation of bad results, however, ended up in Celtic winning the league on both occasions.

In his final season, Gerrard finally got the Premiership trophy back to the Ibrox Stadium, and that too with some style. His side went on an unbeaten run throughout the season to win the league, winning 32 out of their 38 games, scoring 92 and conceding only 13.

The step-up from the Scottish Premiership to the Premier League is huge, but, coming on the back off an unbeaten season, Gerrard will believe his philosophy to be good enough, and Aston Villa seem to trust him, hence it will be interesting to see how things pan out.

 

Gerrard’s managing philosophy

Steven Gerrard worked under some elite managers such as Rafa Benítez, Brendan Rodgers and Sir Kenny Dalglish. Throughout his managerial stint at Rangers, he put his trust in a 4-3-3 formation with attacking, possession-based football. It was always likely that he would play with technically-gifted wingers who operated in the inside channels, with the full-backs overlapping to cross the ball in.

 

Verdict

Stevie Gerrard was and always will be linked to be Liverpool’s next manager. With his preferred playing style being similar to Jürgen Klopp’s, and his managerial career just starting in the Premier League, it looks like the Aston Villa job will provide great exposure to the ex-Liverpool captain and will also be a stepping stone for him to get the Liverpool job in the future.