Concerned Jamie Carragher has pinpointed why Steven Gerrard is struggling at Aston Villa as he pointed to the Rangers tactical formula his Liverpool pal must abandon.
Gerrard traded his title-winning Ibrox side for a shot at the English Premier League last term when he made the move to Villa Park following the Scottish Premiership title success, but has so far failed to win over the diehard fans in the Midlands. Following a draw with Nottingham Forest the Villains are hovering dangerously close to the relegation spots nine games into the campaign.
The Liverpool icon has yet to create a firm identity for the Villa squad after two transfer windows and pressure is rapidly mounting in the cut-throat managerial world of top flight football in England. Now former Liverpool teammate Carragher has urged Gerrard to find an alternative to the same game plan he deployed at Rangers on route to title glory.
Carragher told Sky Sports Monday Night Football that the Premier League side had become too reliant on the full-backs. He reckons Gerrard is trying to recreate the magic he created with Borna Barisic and James Tavernier.
Carragher said: "Stevie is in his fifth season as a manager and has managed two huge football clubs. Rangers and Aston Villa, so I certainly think we have an idea of what his teams look like right now.
"Stevie goes to Rangers. When you go to a club of that magnitude, they only lose 11 games and that's only winning one title. It shows how dominant the two clubs (Rangers and Celtic) were. So you get an idea of how successful they were.
"You also get an idea of how important the full-backs were to a Steven Gerrard team. The full-backs are absolutely imperative of how successful his teams are.
"We see this with Rangers. Straight away the first thing that stands out is you can see the two centre-backs and the full-backs get high and wide. The big feature of a Steven Gerrard team is how narrow they are in midfield with the three attacking players, but they play very narrow. That is one of the reasons they got a lot of goals and a lot of success.
"What really interests me is Steven Gerrard's biggest influences as a manager were my biggest influences, Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez. They were seen as getting a clean sheet first, and a Fernando Torres or Michael Owen will get me goals, and I think Steven Gerrard is pretty similar.
"When they are struggling it's get back to basics and clean sheets. His idea has been to go wide. His success has been going round teams at Rangers and he is trying to do that at Aston Villa, but it's not working.
"Because they are so narrow it can be difficult to find a pass. Philippe Coutinho has been brought in to do something different for Aston Villa, and he is not producing the numbers at the moment."
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