The next step on Steven Gerrard's journey takes him to Saudi Arabia and he's made an immediate impression since taking over at Al-Ettifaq...for better or worse.
The former Rangers and Aston Villa boss is one of the latest in a long line of big names to jump aboard the Middle Eastern bandwagon. Despite initially being reluctant to make the move, he has signed up for the state-backed Saudi Pro League which is likely to have plenty of eyes on it next season amid an exodus from Europe.
According to reports, he's made former Liverpool teammate Jordan Henderson his top signing target but before he gets into the nitty-gritty of it, Gerrard had some formalities to go through. And he got fans chuckling as he took a stab at speaking Arabic in an announcement video...doing so with the thickest Scouse accent imaginable.
In a video published on Ettifaq's social media channels (you can see it in the Instagram embed above), Gerrard says what translates to: "I am Steven Gerrard. I am an Ettifaqi. See you soon."
But his thick accent had fans creasing with one replying "Scouser Arabic is killing me" while another replied "First ever human being to speak Arabic in a Scouse accent." Gerrard's unveiling video, which has now been viewed almost 600,000 times on Twitter alone, reminded fans of Joey Barton's infamous French accent press conference with Marseille while David Moyes attempt at some quick maths in Spanish also sprung to mind.
One fan wrote: "This is worse than when Joey Barton put on that French accent and thought he was speaking French." Meanwhile another simply shared that video of Moyes during his short-lived stint at Real Sociedad, where he delivered a press conference exclusively in English before counting to four in Spanish just to show he could.
