Aston Villa chief executive Christian Purslow considered bringing Rangers manager Steven Gerrard to the club two years ago before deciding to stick with Dean Smith, as reported by the Daily Record.
Similarities can be drawn between the job Smith did at Villa and the way Gerrard cut his tactical teeth at Ibrox.
Both were hired within five months of each other in 2018 and wasted little time dragging a fallen giant off the seat of their pants, breathing fresh life into an underachieving side and guiding them back to where they belong.
Gerrard transformed Rangers from the laughing stock of Scottish football – a side beaten by the fourth-best team in Luxembourg just one year previously – into ruthless, ravenous, title-winners, securing that fabled ‘number 55’ during an unbeaten league campaign.
And while Dean Smith’s Aston Villa tenure ended with a whimper, it shouldn’t be forgotten that, without the intervention of a boyhood fanatic turned Holte End hero, the Midlands giants might still be making midweek trips to Bristol City, Barnsley and Reading.
Smith not only took Aston Villa back to the Premier League, he kept them there, securing a highly impressive 11th place finish last season.
Could Gerrard replace Dean Smith as Aston Villa manager?
Smith was sacked yesterday following a 1-0 defeat at Southampton and, alongside Kasper Hjulmand and Paulo Fonseca, 41-year-old Gerrard is understood to be one of the leading candidates to succeed him in the Villa Park dugout.
However, it remains to be seen whether Gerrard would ‘do a Brendan’ and leave one of Scotland’s biggest clubs in the lurch with silverware on the line.
According to the Record, Purslow – a former Liverpool director – was drawing up plans to hire Gerrard as far back as early 2020 before a New Year’s Day victory over Burnley saved Smith’s skin.
Since then, Gerrard’s reputation has gone from strength to strength, enhanced by a glorious, 102-point league campaign and a hatful of impressive performances on the European stage.
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