The great Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard admitted to Scottish asylum

The great Steven Gerrard was sitting at home when he received a call from the Dog and Duck in Bootle kindly asking the great man if he would be interested in becoming their new manager for next season.

After all, they said, it will be an opportunity to get to grips with real management on a regular basis, test his man-management skills and hone his footballing philosophy. The team, he was told had just won the Southern Merseyside Sunday League.

Stevie laughed and said he’d think about it. The next day Glasgow Rangers called and made Stevie the same offer. The only difference being was the Dog and Duck had won something and Stevie couldn’t remember the last time Rangers had won anything.  Rangers would be paying him of course, but as he is already a billionaire it’s not the money that interested him.

When Stevie’s wife, Alex, returned home two days later after twenty consecutive visits to the gym, they discussed his next move. Eventually Stevie announced that he had decided to plump for the Rangers job mainly because expectations at the Dog and Duck would be too high! Rangers had no expectations, no money, no players and no chance of ever catching up with Celtic. It was a no-brainer.

Now all joking aside this appointment, from where I’m sitting, has more disaster written over it than Dejan Lovren and is potentially a very bad move for Gerrard.

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Far greater managers than he might ever prove to be, have been crushed by the weight of the job. The blue side of Glasgow isn’t a terribly nice place when you’re forever coming second, or even third when Aberdeen are brought into the equation. Another Liverpool legend, Graeme Souness did a great job there of course, but the money was always available and he was aided by the European ban on English clubs.

Some ‘experts’ have opined that Gerrard is essentially being sent out on loan to cut his managerial teeth, though neglecting to mention that Gerrard could probably cut these in any team outside of the Premier League without driving three hundred odd miles to be employed by a basket case.

Gerrard doesn’t need Rangers but Rangers, in the absence of appointing Red Adair, need anybody daft enough to agree. The fact that the club has appointed a caretaker manager two weeks before the end of the season indicates the twilight zone it inhabits.

No matter how many pairs of rose-tinted spectacles Gerrard tries on between now and August, he will not see anything but a series of second place finishes, and that’s assuming everything goes well.

Gerrard was never a serial winner of trophies as a player, and it remains to be seen how good or otherwise his management skills turn out. The history of football, as we all know, is littered with great players who were crushed by the demands of football management.

At the end of the day his decision is little more than a shot in the dark which Gerrard and his advisers obviously feel is one worth taking. Maybe he will turn things around, although Danny Murphy’s recent assertion that Stevie will be a magnet to attract better players should be taken with about three bags of salt.

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Now, as was always the case, the Scottish Premier League is a footballing stud where once great stallions of the game who reach a certain age, sign-on to graze on the lush Scottish grass without ever moving out of second gear.

I wish Steven Gerrard the very best of luck. But if I were his wife, then from August onwards I would be making sure I hid away all sharp objects, stocked up on Valium and had a full-escape plan to get out of Glasgow under the cover of darkness in the wee hours.