Celtic won’t be Gerrard’s biggest problem if he returns to Ibrox. He could be doomed from Day 1.

So, Steven Gerrard’s picking up the phone, is he? The bat-signal has been sent out and the hero is being asked to swoop in and save the day.

Reports are swirling that the ex-Ibrox boss is in talks about a return, in the aftermath of the Davide Ancelotti pipe-dream crashing and burning with all the grace of a flaming wheelie bin. It seems like they’ve reached the “panic and recycle” stage of their managerial search. It didn’t take long.

They must have been gutted that Derek McInnes has already committed his future elsewhere. If they’re willing to go with this option they’re desperate enough to have gone with that one without a moment’s hesitation.

Let’s be blunt here. Gerrard’s time at Ibrox wasn’t nearly as impressive as the press would have you believe. For all the sycophantic nonsense about him “stopping the ten”, he walked away with one trophy. One. In three and a bit years. He left as soon as the going got tough. And he left them in the lurch, mid-season, in the middle of a campaign that was already coming apart. They all know it too.

A lot of their fans are not one bit impressed by this.

There were folk inside that club who weren’t convinced about him even when he was in the building. The media fawned over him, of course, but behind the scenes? Doubts. Plenty of them. And those haven’t gone away.

In fact, a lot of people who were never in the fan club feel pretty vindicated by the mess he left behind at his last two clubs.

He’s had a disastrous spell at Aston Villa and then wandered off to take the Saudi money. This is not a triumphant return — this is an outfit grasping at old straws because nobody else wants the job. He is not coming here in triumph. He dreamed of a top job at a top club and is now considering returning to the backwater he couldn’t wait to escape from. It’s the first time rats have tried to leap aboard a sinking ship.

Look, he got his one trophy under exceptional circumstances. COVID shut down football. The fixtures were a mess. We had no fans in stadiums. Clubs were cutting their squads back to the bone.

Celtic fell off a cliff. Lennon imploded. Gerrard inherited the league in a gift box. And when that strange season ended, so did their luck. He never looked like replicating it. He’d have been swept aside by Ange Postecoglou. Rodgers would’ve had him for breakfast. Lennon himself won five trophies while Gerrard was there; their fans labour mightily to make you forget that.

Their support, for all the banners and songs and nostalgic YouTube compilations, isn’t blind to this. Plenty of them are sceptical. And with good reason.

But what makes this situation even more interesting is that this isn’t a straightforward footballing decision. This is a club caught between two worlds.

On one side, you have the current board, fractured and flailing, trying to paper over the cracks. There’s some new blood in the building; that only makes the picture even less clear. There are a lot of factions at Ibrox fighting it out. That’s likely to remain the case for quite some time to come.

On the other side, you’ve got the American investors hovering, not quite in control yet, but reportedly closing in. The takeover isn’t complete. There are still hurdles to clear. For now, the Yanks don’t have a seat at the table. Not officially. So it really doesn’t make any sense to give them any kind of veto power over this call because you might be giving it to folk who aren’t going to have any responsibility for what you decide.

But here’s the thing — if they do end up taking control, they’ll inherit all the decisions being made right now. And that includes who’s in the dugout. Which is why this Gerrard talk is so fascinating. Because you can already see the fault lines.

There are clear splits in that boardroom already, and those splits aren’t going to be healed by a move like this. Some want a “project manager” — someone young, modern, willing to work within a data-driven framework and a tight budget. That’s the model the Americans are keen on. It’s what they know. Moneyball, spreadsheets, long-term vision. Find undervalued assets. Develop them. Sell for profit. Repeat.

And then there’s Gerrard. He doesn’t do analytics. He doesn’t do long-term planning. He does “spend big, win now.” And that’s not necessarily a criticism — some managers are built that way. But it’s the polar opposite of what these prospective new owners are likely to want, and what the media has been telling us for weeks is their strategic approach. This doesn’t come close to that.

Gerrard was pissed off in the first place because he felt under-resourced. Money is even tighter at Ibrox now than it was then. Still, Gerrard will want money. Control. Influence over recruitment. None of which sits comfortably with the kind of front-office structure the Americans would be planning to put in place.

So what happens if the current board brings him in now, before the takeover is done? What happens when the Americans walk through the door and find themselves stuck with a manager who doesn’t fit their model and doesn’t want to play ball? You could be looking at a full-blown schism.

Once again, nobody in the media seems to care about that possibility. They all blithely assume that the Americans will have okayed this; why would they get the chance? If they assume control, they can call the shots as they want. Until they do those responsibilities belong to people who can’t afford to wait.

We’ve seen this kind of thing before — takeovers where the incoming group inherits a situation that doesn’t match their philosophy. It gets ugly. Fast. Gerrard isn’t just a managerial appointment. He’s a statement. He’s a sign that they are not looking forward at all; they’re looking backwards.

And that could blow up in their faces.

If Gerrard gets the job, he’ll demand backing. He won’t accept being a puppet. And if the Americans push back, you could have boardroom warfare at Ibrox before the ink on the contract is even dry.

In a way, it’s almost funny. They’re trying to navigate a delicate transition with one of the most politically volatile decisions imaginable. It’s the football equivalent of playing Jenga on a rollercoaster.

This whole situation reeks of desperation. The Ancelotti story promised one version of the club, and you can tell that those inside the club expected that deal because Barry Ferguson blew his top over it. This reeks of panic. This reeks of a backup plan, but one that might not necessary please all those who need to be satisfied.

Look how many factions there are here; the current board. The new appointments like Thornton, Stewart and the incoming Thelwell. Then you have the Americans. That’s three different factions, one of which expects control but doesn’t yet have a single vote around the table. There are obviously going to be disagreements between all these people. And that has all sorts of combustible possibilities.

If the Americans don’t want Gerrard, and he’s already back in the building, there’s going to be tension from the word go. If they do want him, then it tells you everything you need to know about the so-called new era — that it’s nothing but a continuation of the last one. Nostalgia, short-termism, and delusions of grandeur.

Either way, it’s a mess. And from our point of view?

Hilarious. Popcorn worthy. Season 13 of the Banter Years. Prepare for the most explosive one yet.