Steven Gerrard should stay on the beach. His Crass ambition would end in another Celtic triumph.

I’m a bit of a history buff as most regular readers are aware, and there’s a story which has been going round in my head lately, one from ancient Rome, that fits Steven Gerrard so well it’s almost eerie.

It concerns a man called Marcus Licinius Crassus — a name rarely uttered outside history departments and trivia nights or those recounting the plot of Spartacus, but it is one that ought to be dusted off every now and again, if only to warn of the perils of hubris. Because he’s the poster child for it.

Crassus had it all. He was the richest man in Rome, wealthier than the gods, with land, properties, and influence spread across the Republic like a plague. Historical sources claim that he was the biggest landlord in the city; the legend is that he set up his own private fire-fighting unit and he and his men would show up to buildings which were burning, and offer the owners and their neighbours a deal; sell us the property (and all around it) cheaply and pay him rent or watch it all burn. Most agreed.

He was part of the First Triumvirate alongside his more famous ally Julius Caesar and their mutual rival Pompey. Crassus was no idiot either — he was a master manipulator of power and politics, and for a time, he was easily the most powerful man in the city. With Caesar and his pupil and prodigy he could have stayed that way for the whole of his life, wielding immense influence and continuing to grow rich. But that wasn’t enough. What Crassus lacked — and what he wanted most — was glory.

He craved military prestige, for although he had defeated Spartacus he had never earned the right to a triumph, and he had watched as his rivals amassed ever more wealth and power for their own exploits. He wanted to be hailed as a great general, not just a financier or a political operator.

Caesar had that. Pompey had that. They had led victorious armies. They were not just major figures in the Senate, they were respected military leaders, which conferred a different sort of power and respect. Caesar was already a legend. Pompey’s prowess had already earned him the honorific “Magnus”, meaning The Great.

Crassus, for all his riches, has never been hailed imperator, he had never led a great military campaign as had those others. So off he went to Parthia, modern-day Iran, to get his war. He didn’t find glory. He found disaster. At Carrhae, he marched a Roman army straight into a meat grinder.

Overconfidence, bad strategy, and an obsession with proving himself led to one of the worst defeats in Roman military history. Crassus was killed, his army destroyed, his body reportedly desecrated by the Parthians; it is said that in recognition of his great wealth they poured molten gold down his throat. His name was etched into the ledger of history not as a hero, but as a cautionary tale.

Now let’s talk about Steven Gerrard.

Gerrard’s time at Ibrox is looked on by some as a glittering triumph. These people tend to forget that in three of his seasons there, he won absolutely nothing. That’s just a fact. In 2018-19? Nothing. In 2019-20? Nothing. In 2021-22, he wasn’t even there when they managed to nick a cup, having fled earlier in the season. He got one good season — one — and scampered away like a thief in the night.

But I’m not here to talk about his past glories or the spin the Ibrox PR machine likes to put on them. I’m here to talk about what’s being whispered now — the ludicrous suggestion that Steven Gerrard might one day return to Ibrox and pick up where he left off. That he might ride in on a white charger, like some knight-errant of old, to lead the club out of its permanent existential crisis and back into glory.

The suggestion is fantasy — and worse than that, it’s dangerous fantasy for him. Because Gerrard, like Crassus, already has more than he deserves. And if he’s smart, he’ll stay on the beach in Dubai, sipping his cocktails and padding his bank balance instead of getting back on the horse and leading his troops to disaster.

Because if he comes back, he’ll get trampled underfoot. Rodgers will own him. The Americans, who I don’t believe for one minute want him there, will not even hesitate to dispatch him. His one title win is safe, it’s in the annals, but its value to him is that it’s pretty unchallengeable. We can argue day and night that it’s a fluke and that it was only secured in the bizarre conditions of the COVID campaign, but he can ride on the false narrative that he did something amazing only for the club itself to fail to match his ambitions until the cows come home.

As long as he doesn’t trash his own legacy, it’s there forever.

This Celtic side — the one he’d be facing now — isn’t the scatterbrained, self-sabotaging outfit that briefly let his side have a turn at the top. This is a club that, under Ange Postecoglou and now Brendan Rodgers, has developed an ever fiercer culture of winning. It is bigger, better structured, and miles ahead of its rivals. The Ibrox club are perpetually scrambling. The hopes being pinned on the takeover are largely based on the flimsy premise that tens of millions will be at the new manager’s disposal, immediately, and we all know that’s absolutely ridiculous.

What Gerrard faced back then was a Celtic side in disarray. Internal strife, boardroom chaos, and a pandemic-crippled season gave him the narrowest of windows through which to crawl. The moment Celtic reset, things righted themselves at once. They gap was bigger and more daunting than ever.

Now, if he were to come back, he wouldn’t be up against a rebuilding project. He’d be trying to topple an empire, and just like Crassus staring into the Parthian desert, Gerrard would be marching not toward triumph, but humiliation.

The parallels with Crassus go further.

Gerrard, like the Roman, has tasted prestige. He’s still a household name. He had a decent job out in Saudi, making daft money for doing next to nothing in a half-serious league. He could go on punditry duty tomorrow and rake in more millions. The world is open to him. And yes, there is even the possibility of a return to the dugout if that’s what he seeks for himself; he only has to look at the likes of Rooney and Lampard, willing to drop down the divisions, to work their way up, to see how he could yet carve himself out a reputation as a manager of some modest talents.

Crassus had Caesar as his ally. Pompey, his great rival, was thus boxed in. He had his money, he had his military achievements although not on a par with theirs. He had nothing left to prove to himself or to others … but jealousy and thwarted ambition ate away at him, it burned at him and finally he succumbed to it.

I’m sure Gerrard, believing his own press up here, can feel that itch. That craving for validation. That desire to prove himself as a proper manager. And here in Glasgow, where the pressure cooker never switches off and where success means more than silverware; it means immortality.

That’s what tempted Crassus too. And that’s why instead of a place at the centre of affairs in Roman politics for the remainder of his life he gave it all away on the bloody sands of a battlefield he should never even have been on.

Ibrox is no place for enhancing reputations. I’ve described it before as a managerial electric chair. Scottish football itself is something other than the sedate environment many seem to believe it to be. In fact, it’s a killing field.

Ask Philippe Clement, a guy who looked the media thought he was going to turn water into wine for about 15 minutes before reality kicked in. Ask Michael Beale, who swaggered into the job like a guy who thought he was the next Bill Shankly and left like a man who couldn’t find the exit quickly enough. Ask Gio van Bronckhorst, who took their club to a European final and still got hounded out like a dog.

The Ibrox job doesn’t make you. It breaks you.

There’s something almost Shakespearean about the tragic figure who comes back for “one last try” — the warrior past his prime who thinks he can win one more fight. But it’s usually a bloodbath.

Because nostalgia is a liar.

It whispers of greatness, but forgets to mention that time moves on and that all of us, when considering our past glories, operate as an unreliable narrator, forever smoothing out the rough edges of memory, changing every break we got, every bit of luck, in our own heads, into something more akin to strategic brilliance. We tend to focus on the end result, casting the process into a mould of our own choosing, overlooking quite deliberately, even if unconsciously, the mistakes we made and the good fortune which aided us along the way.

Gerrard believes that he is a managerial genius and looks upon the COVID campaign as proof of it; that’s the road to Carrhae right there.

Gerrard left Scottish football, or so he thinks, on his own terms. He won’t be afforded the same luxury a second time. If he returns, he will leave with his singular success cast in an entirely new light, a harsher and less forgiving one. He will have it scrutinised, at last, and ridiculed for what we all know it to be.

So, if I were him I’d be content to lie in the sun a while longer.

I’d spend my millions in peace, enjoy my legacy — such as it is — and not be tempted into flirting with disaster. If he’s as smart as his PR team likes to suggest, he’ll look at the landscape in Glasgow and think, “Not for me, mate.”

Because if he comes back, Celtic won’t just beat him. We’ll bury him.