Rangers' first-team squad have been warned to prepare to go through ‘hell’ in pre-season should Steven Gerrard complete his grand return to Ibrox as manager.
Former players Josh Windass and Andy Halliday spoke this week about the former Liverpool and England captain’s first training camp at the La Cala Resort on the Costa del Sol after he took over the reins for his first spell in charge in 2018.
And their description of the running drills Gerrard put them through in those early days of his tenure in the summer heat of Andalusia give an indication of just how determined he was to improve fitness within that selection of players.
According to Windass and Halliday, he split the squad into three groups and put them through five three-minute runs extending to 900 metres with two minutes rest in between.
‘It was hell,’ said Windass. ‘I do that run every pre-season on my own now. Every other day.
‘Gerrard just stood in the middle with his watch. Didn’t say a word.
‘Those runs were scary. You’d go to the pitch and there wouldn’t be a cone anywhere. No balls, nothing. You just had your runners on and the whistle would go.
‘We were racing. The lads wouldn’t be holding off.’
Speaking on the Open Goal podcast, Windass, who left early in Gerrard’s reign to join Wigan Athletic, also discussed how the 44-year-old would tend to take a backseat role on the training field and allow first-team coach Michael Beale to run things.
‘Mick would do it all,’ said Windass. ‘Mick would even do the presentations. In training sessions, he (Gerrard) would come and speak to you while the training session was going on and maybe say something to you.’
Beale, of course, has been linked with the vacant Hull City manager’s job, but Halliday believes he should be considered for a return to Ibrox as Gerrard’s assistant despite his own disastrous spell in charge as boss.
‘I don’t think the fans would want it, but I think you would take him back because he’d be the first-team coach,’ said Halliday, now at Motherwell. ‘He’s not coming back as the manager again. He was very good.’
Halliday also winced when reflecting on those early days of training in the south of Spain.
‘It was hard, aye,’ said Halliday. ‘Five three-minute runs every second day.’
Lyall Cameron is missing link for Rangers after leaving his new team-mates in the shade
Lyall Cameron secured Dundee’s place in the Premiership with two goals at St Johnstone on the final day – but a look back over the entire campaign makes clear the missing ingredients he will bring to the Rangers midfield when he arrives in summer.
The 22-year old racked up 14 goals and nine assists for the Dark Blues in all competitions over the course of the season and those 23 goal involvements are way more than anything anyone else in the Ibrox midfield was able to offer over the past nine months.
Nicolas Raskin netted five times and provided 11 assists in what was a good campaign personally while Mohamed Diomande scored six and set up nine others.
Elsewhere in the Rangers set-up, Tom Lawrence scored six with two assists and Nedim Bajrami managed five and five. Connor Barron scored no goals and managed two assists.
Ianis Hagi’s total for the campaign read five goals and seven assists, with Ross McCausland, whose involvement has been seriously limited of late, managing three and one.
‘I’m confident in my ability and that I can go and try and make an impression and do as well as I can for Rangers,’ said Cameron in the wake of his final Dundee performance at McDiarmid Park.
Rangers will be watching Malik Tillman's future with interest
Rangers fans got a taste of what might have been when news filtered through that Malik Tillman’s goal had helped PSV Eindhoven secure a second successive Eredivisie title last Sunday.
The attacking midfielder spent the 2022-23 season on loan to Rangers from Bayern Munich. While he was far from the finished article that year, there was enough evidence of his big potential.
Rangers would have been glad to exercise their loan-to-buy option, but Bayern thought better of it, sensing perhaps that there was more value still to be had from the German-born USA international.
Sure enough, after a season on loan to PSV he signed a permanent £12million transfer to the Dutch club, which is said to have earned Rangers a seven-figure sum in compensation.
As part of that deal, Bayern are reported to have a £35m buy-back clause, from which the Ibrox club could also benefit.
The way Tillman is going, a return to Bavaria is not outwith the bounds of possibility. He has had a fine season - domestically, internationally and in the Champions League - and he capped it with a fitting display on the final day.
A late goal in their 3-1 win against Sparta Rotterdam sealed a seventh consecutive victory for PSV and nicked a league title that Ajax seemed to have all sewn up as recently as five games earlier.
Still only 22, Tillman has a big future ahead of him. Rangers and their supporters will follow it with interest.
Docherty urges team-mates to ease title heartbreak with cup double
Rangers captain Nicola Docherty has urged her team-mates to put their title heartbreak behind them and focus on finishing the season with another trophy.
It was a tough weekend for Jo Potter’s side, who would have won the league - and kept alive their hopes of a domestic Treble - had they beaten Hibs at Ibrox.
But Linzi Taylor’s second-half goal, as well as a fine display of resilience by the visitors, earned Hibs the championship trophy and left Rangers in third place, six points off the pace.
It was a painful end to the season for Rangers, whose challenge now is to concentrate on adding the Scottish Cup, which they won a year ago, to the League Cup they lifted earlier this season.
Their opponents in the final at Hampden on Sunday will be Glasgow City, who finished a place above them in the table. Rangers lost to them in the league only last month.
As devastating as it was last weekend, Docherty says Rangers cannot afford to dwell on the disappointment. ‘We have to bounce back because we know we have a cup final and it’s a cup we want to retain,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be a tough game against Glasgow City but we need to make sure we pick ourselves up and end the season on a high.
‘This is going to hurt for a long time but when you represent this club you need to move on quickly especially when you have another cup final on the way. I know this group. I know the girls will be hurting but that’s my job and everyone else’s job in the leadership group to make sure we stick together for one last time.’
Asked why Rangers had come up short in the league, Docherty said they had not been consistent enough. ‘If you look at how our season’s gone, we’ve maybe slipped up a few more moments than we would have hoped. If you look back at some of the results we’ve had, they’ve been nothing like us. Some of the performances have been nowhere near it from us and we know that, if you slip up in this league, it’s going to come back and bite you.’