When Steven Gerrard announced he was retiring from international football the response could not have been more English.
A national radio phone-in asked if one of the finest talents of his generation, who had played 114 times for his country, “was all that”?
A year later, in 2015, after his final game for Liverpool, where he had played himself on to the same elevated pedestal as Kenny Dalglish, critics singled-out the one trophy he never lifted, the Premier League, and claimed that omission barred him from being an all-time legend.
And now he has led Rangers to their first title in a decade in only his third season in management, some are saying “but it’s only Scotland” and telling him he needs to prove himself in England before getting near to the Liverpool job he covets.
You’d think they’d have learned that the more Gerrard is doubted the more it drives him on.
I have never met a more self-critical footballer than him, or, on the flip side, one so obsessed with achieving his goals. Which is why the lack of that title at Liverpool still tortures him and why winning one at Rangers means so much.
Any lukewarm appreciation of his landslide Scottish Premiership triumph is absurd.
It took balls for Gerrard to go to Ibrox for his first managerial job at a time when they were still suffering financial and psychological turmoil.
He has shown strong leadership, an eye for talent, man-management skills and through his excellent record in Europe, that he may possess more tactical nous than how to win on a rainy night at St Mirren.
He has drilled an attractive, possession-based style and a winning mentality into Rangers and led them out of Celtic’s all-conquering shadow without any of the big name internationals Graeme Souness was able to attract from England back in the ‘80s.
Above all of that, he’s proven to himself that as a manager he can handle the scrutiny and pressure at a huge, but underachieving club, as well as he could as a player.
But he knows this is just the beginning. He won’t want to throw away all the hard work he’s put in to resurrect a footballing institution. He’ll want to test himself as a champion and build on this success.
Which is why any talk of his suitability to succeed Jurgen Klopp is wildly premature.
Of course he is aching to put behind him the agony of losing out on the 2014 title and hold the Premier League up in front of the Kop.
But a quick glance at how his former England team-mate Frank Lampard fared after being offered the Chelsea job purely on the club legend ticket, will leave him wary. A quick word with that other Liverpool playing legend Souness, who moved from Rangers to Anfield at the wrong time, would tell him to be patient.
However, Gerrard doesn’t need to seek advice or compare his situation to others, because he knows himself and his boyhood club better than anyone.
Last year he batted away any suggestion that he was in line to take over from Klopp by saying expectations at Anfield are “a completely different ball game”. He did the same this week by asking “who’s to say I’ll ever be good enough?”
There’s the key to the man. Gerrard will only believe he is ready to manage Liverpool by satisfying the same criteria he did when he wanted to break into the first team as a much-lauded local prodigy. By proving to himself that he is the best-equipped person for the job.
Building something special at Rangers would banish any self-doubts.
