Rangers midfielder Scott Arfield reveals thoughts on Steven Gerrard exit
Rangers midfielder Scott Arfield has admitted that he was not surprised by Steven Gerrard leaving Ibrox last month.
After nearly three and a half years at the helm in Glasgow, Gerrard departed for Premier League club Aston Villa in November.
Six months earlier, the Englishman had led Rangers to their first Scottish Premiership title in 10 years.
“Personally I think that was coming anyway,” Arfield said about Gerrard’s exit [Football Scotland]. “When you play at a club like this, people love to talk.
“So whether you are playing well and grinding out results, whether you’re not getting results and playing well, people love to talk about it.
“Everything gets more scrutinised and rightly so. So it was probably coming.
“The manager wanted a new challenge and you can see that comparison down there where Aston Villa couldn’t really buy a win for the first five months of the season but have now won three out of four.”
Inevitable
It was always likely that Gerrard was going to move on from Rangers at some point, given his ambition to manage in the Premier League and ultimately take the reigns at Liverpool.
Having transformed the Bears during his tenure at Ibrox, his reputation was constantly rising and he was linked with vacant jobs in England all of the time.
However, the timing of his departure was frustrating as it came just before the Scottish League Cup semi-final, which Rangers ended up losing to Hibernian.
That said, the team seem to have been given a new lease of life by incoming manager Giovanni Bronckhorst, who won his first four games in charge before getting a creditable draw away at Lyon in the Europa League on Thursday (9 December).
As Arfield says, it has worked out for Gerrard too as he has made an impressive start to life in the Aston Villa dugout.
In other Rangers news, the Bears have doubts about signing a European wonderkid.