This is the Blood Red Podcast from the Liverpool Echo, giving you the inside track on all the big talking points from Anfield.

Welcome along to the latest offering here from the Blood Red Podcast. I'm Guy Clark as we talk

about the intensifying links around Stephen Gerard's managerial future.

We're going to look at the developing story, his successes at Rangers, how that's attracted Aston Villa and

whether or not a move to Villa Park could well be the next pin on the map back to Anfield. Coming up, we'll be gauging the opinion from Ibrocks and down the M6 in Birmingham as well.

Firstly though from the Rangers review, it's a pleasure to welcome Derek Clark to Blood Red. No relation, but Derek we are good pals.

How are you feeling regarding all of this?

I suppose it must be quite nerdy times from the Rangers perspective.

Yeah, it was a struggle to sleep last night.

I'm not going to lie guy when the when Dean Smith was

sacked it on Sunday firstly I think it was a harsh sacking to say the least but

Gerard of course was linked with the job. He's linked to

pretty much every Premier League job at the moment. I didn't think too much of it

given, but Villav got a track record of hiring and firing managers given their lowly league position.

But this certainly seems different to other jobs been linked with.

It's a gallid momentum at pace, linking them with the job so much so that you're hearing from sources saying the deal's already done.

It could be announced at any point.

So I'm just trying to sort of reason with myself, trying to find out why you would possibly leave Rangers at this

point in time as well, not good timing to join a club like Aston Villa. It's a difficult one to try and try and think the reasons behind it.

Yeah, no, definitely. In terms of then kind of Stephen Gerard from an overview as a

managerial perspective, of course Liverpool fans know all too well what he offered on the pitch.

But from the dugout we've done a number of these podcasts kind of over the last three years

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