When Steven Gerrard finally guided Rangers to a long-awaited 55th league title, the sun was certainly shining.
But Douglas Park, the Rangers board and everyone else in the background at Ibrox appear to have blew the chance to fix the roof before the rain came.
Now, Rangers are on their fourth manager in less than four years with Gerrard’s exit coming off the back of a static approach to the transfer window from the Ibrox hierarchy and the skies have since opened up.
And if the Ibrox shareholders felt that investment in the summer of 2021 was going to be costly, years of transfer failure has just blown three Premiership titles, three automatic Champions League qualifications and re-opened an Old Firm gap which had previously been bridged.
Now, Philippe Clement has made a public appeal for the transfer funds which will be necessary to prevent it becoming a chasm.
At the same time, a clip from the Steven Gerrard’s time at Rangers has been resurfacing with everyone at the top of the club standing accused of sleeping at the optimum moment to future proof our success.
Gerrard urged Rangers to ‘fix the roof’
Drenched in champagne, Steven Gerrard was speaking the moment after Rangers lifted a first title in 10 years and a 55th in the club’s illustrious history.
Despite clearly basking in the celebrations, Gerrard quickly shifted the focus towards more success and claimed that Rangers had a responsibility to keep moving forward.
“It’s about the club, it’s about what’s next,” Gerrard told Sky Sports. “This is a club as you know that you can’t stand still. It has to be about the future.
“This has to be a launch pad. We have to fix the roof now, the sun’s shining, everyone’s happy, but it’s my job to find the tweaks, find the little malfunctions within the group that we need to iron out.
“The recruitment’s key now. You can see the last few games we’re short in certain areas.
“I’ve had some really interesting meetings with the board. They’re with me, they’ll back me and we’ll go again and we’ll try and build on this success.”
Celtic close in on Rangers record
Needless to say, this is not what happened.
In the summer of 2021 Rangers moved for Fashion Sakala and John Lundstram on pre-contracts.
The addition of Juninho Bacuna on a strange percentage of future sale deal came late on but the Curacao international struggled to settle in Glasgow.
This is despite high profile transfer links around the club, with the likes of Joey Veerman standing out as the major target Gerrard missed out on due to a lack of investment.
Whilst the Scouser also had his role to play by holding on to players such as Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent at their peak, since then the club’s recruitment has been disastrous.
A failure to strike whilst the iron was hot led to Gerrard’s departure and the subsequent toils of every manager since and as a result, there’s a reason why Douglas Park, Stewart Robertson and Ross Wilson are no longer in their roles at the club.
This is the key moment in Rangers’ recent history and it has allowed Celtic to regain a domestic foothold, the Parkhead side winning six of the last eight trophies.
Worryingly, Rangers’ legacy is also under threat with Celtic edging closer to title 54 – one behind Rangers’ world record haul – whilst the club’s 118 all-time trophy haul is also within Parkhead sights.
Celtic bring their trophy haul to 117 with Premiership victory and the Scottish Cup becomes even more crucial for Rangers in keeping their noses in front of their rivals.
It’s been a disastrous few years domestically and as Rangers have regressed, how those who have directed the club in this period might reflect on these comments from Steven Gerrard.
It was there for us to move forward and all of them, to a man, blew it.
