Michael Beale on Rangers project that kept him with 'brother' Steven Gerrard as he opens up on Aston Villa exit

dailyrecord.co.uk:

If Steven Gerrard had the big name, Michael Beale had the big ideas. Or so that’s sometimes how the blend of Rangers’ managerial set-up was characterised during the former Liverpool skipper’s time in charge iat Ibrox.

Gerrard certainly gave some fuel to theory that while he could command respect and devotion with an aura still glowing strong 17 years on from his inspirational Champions League-winning exploits with Liverpool, it was Beale who would sprinkle the sparks of inspiration every time he stepped onto a training pitch. “It would take me 15 to 20 years to become as good as Michael Beale as an on-pitch coach,” he once said of his then right-hand man.“A lot of people won't have a clue what Michael Beale does on the training pitch, but what he does is really quite special.”But ask Beale himself and he will insist there was as much savvy thinking involved in Gerrard’s leadership as there was in the tactical tweaks he was often credited with.

Along with Gary McAllister and Tom Culshaw, they formed a winning coaching combo that, bit by bit, transformed Rangers’ failing squad into one that could once again reign supreme in Scotland and hold its own in Europe.

But Beale has long had his eye on being a boss in his own right and a desire to stand and fall on his own name.So having followed Gerrard to Aston Villa when he quit his Rangers post last November, Beale has now decided the time has come to go it alone.The 41-year-old - yesterday unveiled as the new manager of QPR - would have done it sooner but the chance to work alongside a figure like Gerrard was too alluring.The stronger his ideas grew, however, the more he feared he’d eventually clash heads with a man he’d grown to regard as a brother.“Obviously it is a big