Football Insider reported on Monday that Rangers have offered manager Steven Gerrard an extension to his current contract, with this new deal worth £2.5m a year and set to keep him at the club until the end of the 2023/24 season.
According to Sky Sports, the 39-year-old is close to agreeing terms on the proposed new deal, with Football Insider claiming that English clubs such as Leeds had been keeping tabs on the Gers boss with an eye to a potential job offer in the future.
The Rangers job is Gerrard’s first managerial gig in senior football and the offer of a contract extension is a strong show of faith in him approaching the halfway mark of his second season in charge at Ibrox.
Although he missed out on a first trophy at the club in losing the Betfred Cup final to Celtic last weekend, his team’s dominance for large spells (they had 16 shots to the Hoops’ five) showed that there is now very little to choose between them and their rivals, who have won the last 10 domestic trophies on offer.
It wasn’t just in Sunday’s Hampden Park showdown that the Glasgow pair have been closely matched, either – Rangers are just two points adrift of their crosstown rivals in the Premiership after 15 games (as per Sky Sports).
Before Gerrard took charge at Ibrox in summer 2018, the Light Blues hadn’t won an Old Firm derby in 90 minutes since 2011, a run of 14 games. He won two of his first four derbies to banish memories of 5-0 and 4-0 defeats at the home of Celtic in the previous season. [via TransferMarkt]
Rangers finished third in the Premiership and 12 points behind their Glaswegian rivals in that 2017/18 season before Gerrard took them to second last term, their highest finish in the Premiership since they last won it in 2011.
He has averaged 2.04 points per game from his spell in charge, the best return of any Rangers boss to have managed in the top flight for his entire tenure since Walter Smith earned 2.11 points per game from 2007 to 2011.
Ally McCoist won 2.3 points per game but that included games from League One and Two, while Mark Warburton’s average of 2.18 points per game encompasses some won in the Championship.
Gerrard has also overseen a notable upturn in Rangers’ European fortunes, twice getting the club into the Europa League group stage after their first qualifying round exit in 2017/18 and within one point of guiding them into the knockout rounds of a European competition for the first time since 2011. [via TransferMarkt]
The club’s improvements on the domestic and European stage on his watch are evident and he has earned the contract extension offered to him by the club
With the Gers narrowly coming up short in the Betfred Cup final and running Celtic so close in the Premiership title race, Gerrard does not seem far away from delivering Rangers’ first major trophy since they were last crowned Scottish champions nine years ago (as per TransferMarkt).
Rangers fans, do you think the club were right to offer Gerrard a new deal at the club? Have you been impressed by the job he has done so far? Share your views in the comments section below!