Steven Gerrard must get all of Aston Villa’s squad into his Culture Club if he is to succeed as a Premier League boss.
The former Liverpool and England skipper is under the microscope after Villa's dire start to the season at Bournemouth, where they conceded after just 118 seconds. A 2-0 loss on the opening weekend to the promoted Cherries has undone much of the positivity from an unbeaten pre-season ahead of Gerrard’s first full season of a new era in B6.
Gerrard has incredibly high standards from a legendary playing career and his successful start to management at Rangers, but getting all his latest players to share his values is proving challenging. Already last season’s captain Tyrone Mings has been stripped of the captaincy and replaced by John McGinn.
Mings, who has been struggling with a groin injury, didn’t even make the starting line up on the south coast where he was an unused sub. Gerrard is trying to change and shake up the mentality at Villa who have come 14th ,11th and 17th since getting promoted back to the top-flight.
Gerrard,42, won the Champions League, FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup as a player and has aspirations of a similar high flying career as a manager, with a crack at the Liverpool job likely one day providing he does reasonably well in the meantime.
Yet his high standards and forthright attitude isn’t going down well among all of the players he inherited when he replaced Dean Smith last November. Some of whom were very comfortable and content just to be at a big club like Villa, with decent salaries and sell-out 42,000 home games.
Yet that all ended when Gerrard breezed in to push the club forward with the backing of billionaire owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens. Gerrard's demands for even more competition and commitment since from Villa’s squad has been a shock to several.
He got an immediate reaction initially with four wins in his first six games but finished the last campaign with just two wins in 11 games. Philippe Coutinho has since joined permanently on £120,000-a-week but he ended the season in lacklustre fashion.
The Brazilian was replaced again at Bournemouth after failing to make much impact. Now Gerrard has some huge decisions ahead of Everton and Frank Lampard’s visit on Saturday lunchtime.
Coutinho’s place must be at risk in midfield and the Villa boss has a big call at the centre of his defence. Upfront Danny Ings got the nod to start ahead of Ollie Watkins last weekend - fuelling claims of a bust-up which Villa's head of communications has described as “absolute nonsense” on Twitter.
But it all adds to a sense of unease at Villa who won just six times at home in the League last season and Gerrard needs some early victories to convince his doubters.
