Steven Gerrard has confirmed he remains hopeful of one day managing Rangers again, revealing that he came “very close” to agreeing a sensational second spell in charge at Ibrox last month before ultimately deciding to walk away from the opportunity. The Liverpool legend, who guided Rangers to their first league title in a decade during his previous stint in Govan, opened up on just how advanced discussions had become before he chose not to proceed, in the process shedding new light on one of the most talked-about managerial sagas in recent Scottish football history.
The saga began when Rangers moved to sack Russell Martin after just four months in charge, a brief and turbulent reign that had seen the team win only one of their opening seven Scottish Premiership matches of the season. With the club needing a swift and reassuring appointment to steady the ship, attention immediately turned to Gerrard, who many supporters still regard as a hero for what he achieved during his first spell in charge between 2018 and 2021.
According to reports at the time, Gerrard appeared to be on the verge of completing a return, travelling from his home in Bahrain to London for a series of meetings with Ibrox’s ownership, including chairman Andrew Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises representative Paraag Marathe. The talks were significant enough that bookmakers were forced to suspend betting on Gerrard becoming the club’s next permanent manager, such was the strength of the reports suggesting a deal was close to being finalised. Other names, including Hearts boss Derek McInnes, former Rangers player Kevin Muscat and ex-Everton manager Sean Dyche, had also been discussed as potential candidates, but Gerrard was widely viewed as the clear frontrunner given his history and connection with the club.
Despite the advanced stage of talks, Gerrard ultimately decided against pushing the move through, choosing to step aside after what were described as several rounds of constructive discussion. In his own account, he explained that any return to a challenge as significant and emotionally weighted as managing Rangers again would need to be undertaken only if the circumstances were absolutely perfect and he felt entirely ready to commit. Reflecting on the affection and connection he still holds for the club, Gerrard admitted that unfortunately, due to the timing, he was not in a position to say he was completely ready, and so he stepped aside from the process.
He pointed to a combination of football and family reasons behind his decision, without going into extensive detail on the specifics of either. When pressed on whether his reservations stemmed from the club’s current football structure, in which the head coach operates underneath sporting director Kevin Thelwell rather than holding the more traditional, all-encompassing managerial authority Gerrard held during his first spell, he acknowledged that timing simply did not feel right on either the football or family side of his life at that particular moment.
Despite turning down the chance to return, Gerrard was careful to make clear that his affection for Rangers remains undiminished, and that the door has not been permanently closed on a future reunion. He offered his best wishes to the club as it prepared to move forward under new management, saying he would be watching from afar as a supporter and hoping for the best for the team. That message struck a notably warm tone given the emotional weight of turning down such a significant opportunity, and it left many Rangers supporters with the impression that a future return, even if not imminent, has not been ruled out entirely.
With Gerrard’s decision to step away confirmed, Rangers were forced to pivot quickly in their search for a new head coach. The club’s attention turned to Danny Rohl and Kevin Muscat as the leading alternatives, with Muscat’s prior commitment to an ongoing title race with Chinese club Shanghai Port ultimately ruling him out of contention. That left the path clear for Rohl to be appointed, bringing to an end a turbulent few weeks in which the club had gone from sacking Martin to nearly re-appointing a club legend before eventually settling on a different candidate entirely.
In the interim period between Martin’s dismissal and a permanent successor being appointed, Rangers Under-19 coach Steven Smith took charge of first-team training on an interim basis, working alongside B team coach Brian Gilmour, goalkeeping coach Sal Bibbo and head of performance Rhys Owen, underlining just how unsettled the picture around the Ibrox dugout had become during that period of managerial
Beyond the specifics of the Rangers saga, Gerrard has also spoken more broadly about his ongoing ambitions in management, describing himself as having a degree of unfinished business in the profession. Speaking in an interview released around the same time as the Rangers speculation, he explained that he wanted to be at a club that is going to compete to win, suggesting that this kind of environment suits him better than a rebuilding project without the same immediate pressure or expectation. That comment offers some insight into how Gerrard views his next potential move, suggesting he is looking for a club capable of competing seriously rather than simply a job for its own sake.
Since leaving his most recent post in charge of Saudi Arabian side Al-Ettifaq in January, Gerrard has remained out of full-time management, giving him the flexibility to consider a move like the one that was on the table at Ibrox. His comments about wanting to be somewhere competitive align closely with what a returning spell at Rangers, a club with genuine ambitions of ending Celtic’s recent domestic dominance, would have represented, even if the timing ultimately did not work out on this occasion.
Any suggestion of a Gerrard return to Ibrox inevitably carries significant emotional resonance given what he achieved during his first spell in charge. Arriving in Govan in the summer of 2018 with no senior managerial experience, having previously worked in Liverpool’s youth set-up, Gerrard oversaw a rapid transformation of a Rangers side that had fallen well behind Celtic in the years following the club’s financial implosion in 2012. His crowning achievement came in the 2020-21 season, when Rangers won the Scottish Premiership title unbeaten, ending Celtic’s bid for ten consecutive league titles in the process and delivering a first championship for the Ibrox club in a decade.
That triumph cemented Gerrard’s status as one of the most significant figures in the club’s recent history, and it is precisely that connection and legacy that has kept his name so closely associated with the Rangers job whenever a vacancy has arisen in the years since he left to take charge of Aston Villa later in 2021. Throughout his time in Govan, speculation over a potential return to Liverpool, the club where he made 710 appearances as a player and became one of the most iconic captains in the club’s history, was a constant undercurrent, with figures such as Jurgen Klopp publicly naming him as a manager he would be happy to see succeed him at Anfield one day. Despite that ever-present chatter, Gerrard remained fully focused on his work at Ibrox throughout his tenure there, repeatedly stressing in interviews at the time that his sole focus was on the next match and the next challenge in front of him, rather than looking ahead to any hypothetical future opportunity
Given how close talks reportedly came to a positive conclusion this time around, it seems unlikely that this will be the last time Gerrard’s name is linked with a return to Ibrox, particularly given his own admission that he remains hopeful of managing the club again in the future. Any future return, however, would likely require the structural questions that appear to have played a role in his hesitation this time, particularly around how a head coach’s authority interacts with the role of sporting director Kevin Thelwell, to be resolved in a way that Gerrard feels comfortable with.
There is also the question of timing from a personal perspective. Gerrard’s reference to family reasons alongside football considerations suggests that any future move would need to align not just with the right footballing opportunity, but with circumstances in his personal life that allow him to commit fully to what he has previously described as an enormous and emotionally significant challenge. Given the affection he clearly still holds for Rangers, and the fact that both sides are understood to have left discussions on good terms, it is plausible that those conditions could align again at some point down the line, whether that comes the next time the Ibrox job becomes vacant or further into the future.
For now, Rangers have moved forward with Danny Rohl at the helm, following the swift turnaround required after Martin’s dismissal and Gerrard’s decision not to proceed with a return. But the strength of feeling around this episode, from the suspension of betting markets to Gerrard’s own candid admission of how close he came to saying yes, suggests that this particular chapter of the Ibrox managerial story is unlikely to be the final word on a possible second spell for one of the club’s most successful modern managers.
Gerrard’s own comments leave the door firmly ajar. Having stated plainly that he hopes to return to Rangers one day, and having been willing to travel for detailed talks with the club’s ownership before pulling back only at the last moment, it is clear that the emotional pull of Ibrox remains as strong as ever for the former captain. Whether that translates into an actual second spell in the dugout, and if so, when the timing might finally align for both parties, remains one of the more intriguing subplots to watch in Scottish football in the months and years ahead.
