Steven Gerrard ‘of Interest’ to Premier League Club on the Slide

A Championship team has also reportedly offered Gerrard a permanent position.

Steven Gerrard has been out of work since January 2025. | Alfie Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto/Getty Images

Burnley are thought to be contemplating the appointment of legendary former Liverpool midfielder Steven Gerrard as Scott Parker’s position comes under consideration.

The Clarets had Premier League relegation confirmed last week with four matches of the campaign still to play. The freshly promoted outfit have recorded one top-flight win since October, yet persisted with Parker, the coach who led them to a 100-point Championship season last term.

That triumph was built upon a historically parsimonious rearguard: Burnley shipped just 16 goals in 46 Championship games. However, Premier League forwards proved to be tougher to keep out. The Clarets took just nine outings in the competition to concede 17 goals.

Somewhat counterintuitively, Parker is arguably the best manager to restore Burnley to England’s top table. For all his failings in the Premier League as a head coach, the retired midfielder has mastered the second tier of the pyramid, winning three promotions with three different clubs in six years.

Nevertheless, Burnley owner Alan Pace is set to hold discussions with Parker over his future and, in the event that a new manager needs to be found, Gerrard’s name is one which has been floated by The Guardian. Current Wales national team manager Craig Bellamy, who served as Vincent Kompany’s assistant while at Turf Moor, is another potential candidate, but it remains unclear whether he would leave his current post.

Gerrard, by contrast, is demonstrably unattached.

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Gerrard ‘Offered’ Rival Championship Club Return

Roy Hodgson managed Gerrard at Liverpool and England. | Jacques Feeney/Offside/Getty Images

Burnley’s soon-to-be Championship rivals Bristol City have gone one step further, offering Gerrard a permanent position before the season has even concluded, per The Independent.

When the Robins appointed 78-year-old Roy Hodgson to oversee the final seven games of the season, it was strictly on a short-term basis. The former England manager has taken six points from his first half-dozen fixtures ahead of the season ender against Stoke City, steering Bristol City into the comfort of mid-table.

Ambitions for the club are high, but former manager Gerhard Struber bemoaned the muddled infrastructure. The Robins are only belatedly closing in on appointing a sporting director in the form of James Ellis, whose first order of business may be to convince Gerrard to take on this challenge before embarking upon a hasty squad overhaul. As ex-Robins midfielder Gary Owers fretted earlier this season: “For City to progress it could be a total rebuild in the summer.”

There is clearly less work required to take Burnley back up to the Premier League. The Clarets will benefit from the lucrative parachute payments and already boast several experienced Championship operators. Bristol City’s last top-flight fixture came four weeks before Gerrard was even born.

If the Champions League winner is to return to the dugout, he has made it abundantly clear that it will only be on his terms.

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Steven Gerrard’s Managerial Career

Club	Tenure	Games
Al Ettifaq	July 3, 2023–Jan. 30, 2025	55
Aston Villa	Nov. 11, 2021–Oct. 20, 2022	40
Rangers	July 1, 2018–Nov. 10, 2021	192

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‘Unfinished Business’—What Steven Gerrard Has Said About Return to Management

Steven Gerrard previously took charge of Aston Villa. | FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP/Getty Images

It’s been 15 months since Gerrard left Saudi side Al Ettifaq. The former top-flight champion with Rangers took nine months to move to the Kingdom after parting ways with Aston Villa in October 2022, which remains his last and only experience of Premier League (or English) management. Patience is no issue for the 45-year-old.

“There’s a part of me that still feels that there’s a bit of unfinished business in terms of wanting to go in and face another couple of exciting challenges,” Gerrard told Rio Ferdinand on his self-titled podcast earlier this season. “But I want a certain type of challenge.

“If in an ideal world they come available, I’ll jump at them. If they don’t, I won’t go back in. I want to be at a team that’s going to compete to win because I think that suits me better.”

Gerrard lived up to his word by reportedly turning down the chance to return to Rangers last October.

The prospect of taking charge of Liverpool is one which has been floated, with Gerrard even opening himself up to the possibility of serving as the assistant to an elite manager during an appearance on The Overlap recently. However, with Arne Slot set to stay on at Anfield and not seemingly in the market for a No. 2 to make him even more unpopular by comparison, Gerrard may have to settle for a different position.

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