Martin Keown believes former Rangers boss Steven Gerrard could be a ‘very good fit’ for Leeds United despite his dreadful spell in the Premier League at Aston Villa.
As one-time Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan puts it, the Liverpool legend should not be ‘fired into obscurity because he made mistakes’ at Villa Park.
Steven Gerrard, after all, remains the only Rangers manager in the last 10 years to break Celtic’s iron-fist stranglehold over the Scottish Premiership scene. His Gers side finished with a staggering 102 points in 2020/21, they did not lose a single league game, and played with the sort of swagger, intensity and determination reminiscent, perhaps, of Marcelo Bielsa’s early days Leeds United.
And Keown, himself an Invincible with Arsenal, believes that Gerrard showed enough during his time at Ibrox – he also laid the foundations for last season’s dazzling Europa League run – to suggest that he could shake a recently-relegated Leeds side from their slumber.
“It is a very good fit for the fans, for the high-energy football he wants to play,” Keown, a three-time Premier League winner with Arsenal, tells talkSPORT (5 June, 12pm).
“There are a lot of players in that team who want to press high.”
Is Steven Gerrard the right manager for Leeds United?
The Sun believe that Gerrard is one of the potential frontrunners to take over from Sam Allardyce at Elland Road. The 43-year-old has long been linked with a move to Leeds United, though Jordan – if he was in Andrea Radrizzani’s shoes – would want to be certain that Gerrard can bounce back from 11 highly-disappointing months at an Aston Villa side who went from relegation candidates to qualifying for Europe under his successor, Unai Emery.
“It depends on what he’s learned,” Jordan argues. “We should never ever fire someone into obscurity because they have made mistakes,”
“What did he take away (from that Aston Villa spell)? If I’m interviewing Steven Gerrard, tell me what it is you did at Rangers. And what you didn’t do at Villa. What did you learn?
“I would listen to it and, if there was nothing there, he wouldn’t get the job. You’re looking for the very specific reasons of why he failed (at Aston Villa).
“(I would ask) ‘How are you going to get my team out the Championship at the first go? Tell me what I need, what I don’t need and how you are going to do it. Because, right now, you are a manager who got sacked and who’s team have now finished in Europe.
“I want to see him back because he is capable. Not because he is Steven Gerrard.”
Leeds have also been linked with Lorient coach Regis le Bris. Andoni Iraola, meanwhile, is now a free-agent after leaving Rayo Vallecano.
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