Ex Rangers + Sunderland boss poised for uncertainty as he's 'set' to walk out of job two months after arrival

Two former Rangers managers could be about to find themselves on the football scrapheap after news broke that Steven Gerrard and Michael Beale are set to quit Saudi Pro League club Al-Ettifaq.

Liverpool icon Gerrard is expected to resign from his role as head coach imminently after moving to the Middle East in the summer of 2023. But an inconsistent run of form has left Ettifaq down in 12th spot in the league table, having won just two of their last 14 games.

And assistant Beale is also poised to follow Gerrard through the departure lounge, just two months after his appointment.

The ex-Gers and Sunderland boss, who was sacked by the Ibrox club in October 2023 after failing to win a trophy and suffered three defeats in the club’s first seven games at the start of the 23/24 season, had a brief stint in charge of the English Championship side. But he was dismissed after just 12 matches.

Beale worked under Gerrard in Glasgow between 2018 and 2021 and was part of the coaching team that helped Rangers clinch a 55th league title during the 2020/21 campaign.

According to Ben Jacobs, senior football correspondent at GiveMeSport, both Gerrard and Beale are braced for an Al-Ettifaq exit. He tweeted on X: “Steven Gerrard has asked to leave Al-Ettifaq and a departure is expected imminently. Michael Beale also set to leave. Ettifaq have not sacked Gerrard. He has asked to leave for personal reasons. Club respectful of his decision and an exit package being finalised. Not necessarily the end of Gerrard’s relationship with Saudi as he could be open to a role in football development there.”

Jacobs then released an update a short time later confirming: “Understand Al-Ettifaq currently have two options to replace Steven Gerrard. Former player and manager Saad Al-Shehri is under consideration. Bahrain coach Dragan Talajić is the other candidate of interest.”

Beale previously declared his love of working with the ex-Gers boss on the TGG podcast back in June 2021, providing a detailed insight into his key qualities as a coach.

“What you find with a lot of successful people is that communication and clarity are huge and they have that personality to inspire, to get under people’s skin, to get them to believe in a vision,” he said. “The best coaches in the world have that ability to keep people on that ‘you versus yourself’ journey and sell a vision that’s exciting.

“That’s the one thing I would say about all the coaches I’ve seen, be it Jurgen Klopp, Brendan Rodgers, that ability to inspire people with your personality and vision and Steven has that. He has been hugely experienced in his career, in terms of being the leader in the dressing room, and I could tell quite quickly from some of the conversations we had in big moments that he was different to the normal person.

“Steven is extremely positive, really open, really wants to have a relationship with his players and is really open to ideas from his staff. We came in with a huge responsibility to the club in terms of implementing a model and a vision and having some real positivity around it. We’re all really positive people (as a coaching staff) and that’s important, because it’s easy in a season to get negative. We’re good at zapping each other out of it.”