Craig Beattie comments on ‘arrogant’ Steven Gerrard, compares him to Ronaldo and Messi

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Steven Gerrard will be hoping his Rangers side can book their place into the knockout stages of the Europa League tonight.

Craig Beattie has paid a ‘compliment’ to Steven Gerrard for being ‘arrogant’ and ‘stubborn’, as he thinks those types of characteristics are needed for him to do the job he’s currently doing at Rangers.

The BBC Sport pundit compared Gerrard’s ‘arrogance’ at Rangers to that of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, who have it in ‘abundance’, according to the former striker.

Gerrard missed the chance to lift his first piece of silverware with Rangers last Sunday, and he will be hoping his team can bounce back from that damaging defeat by securing their passage to the knockout stages of the Europa League tonight.

Speaking to Sportsound on BBC Radio Scotland (11/12/19 at 6:40 pm), Beattie shared his thoughts on Gerrard’s ‘arrogant’ ways.

“He strikes me as a, and I mean this as a compliment, stubborn, arrogant character that would be required to do that job,” Beattie told Sportsound. “He’s learning on the job as well.

“He admittedly picked the wrong team and formation at the [Old Firm] game at Ibrox. He seemed to have addressed that on Sunday, and Rangers were very dominant for the majority of the match.

“I think [that arrogance] is the mentality you need to elevate yourself to a level and be able to maintain a level of performance and command respect. You look at your Ronaldo’s and Messi’s, and these guys, [they have] arrogance in abundance. But the majority of the time it’s carried in the correct way.”

There’s no doubting that Gerrard has transformed Rangers since he moved to Ibrox at the start of last season.

That League Cup final defeat at Hampden would have hit Gerrard and his players hard, but they have a great chance to put things right, not just in a couple of weeks time, but in these coming months.

Rangers will travel to Parkhead for a Premiership showdown where Gerrard will be hoping for a similar performance to the one they displayed on Sunday, but this time he will be hoping for some cutting-edge.