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 call,” said the former Gers first-team coach as he officially started work at Loftus Road. “There have been other opportunities before but I have always stayed with the same management team and stayed loyal to that.
“I just felt that it was the right time, after the huge experience that I had up in Scotland and coming to the Midlands, I felt that I was over-ready, I was over-cooked a bit as an assistant.
“Now is the time, before me and Steven fall out and before I overstep my job, it was time to start on my own.
“If I wasn’t working with someone who had the stature of Steven Gerrard and enjoyed the relationship I had with him, I would’ve been a manager probably before coming to Rangers.
“I took the choice to work with Steven and while I was at Rangers, had five or six opportunities to move on, one or two in Scotland, back home and around Europe. I always rebuffed them because I was part of the project and plan at Rangers. I didn’t think it was finished.
“The reaction [from Steven to joining QPR] was fantastic. We have always communicated honestly the whole time we were together.
“His advice towards me was fantastic, it will stay between us obviously.
“Steven is like my football brother, it is hard for me to have more respect for someone than I have for him.”
And what about those suggestions that he was the real brains behind the operation that guided Gers to last year’s unbeaten title triumph?
“I think it was a bit disrespectful to the work that we all did,” he said. “There are lots of ways to coach football players.
“The 11 o’clock training on the pitch is a guarantee, that happens every day, but there are different types of coach.
“There is the motivator, the leader type, the manager type, the tactician, the technical coach.
“We had a really well-balanced management team. Steven was extremely smart in the way he put his management team together, it’s probably a lesson for other ex-professionals going into the job that need to round themselves off. Steven was very, very smart in that.”
Glasgow was not Beale’s first experience in a football hotbed.
He took his first steps into coaching working with the kids at Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. There was a stint in Brazil with South American giants Sao Paulo before the posting at the Liverpool academy that saw him first cross Gerrard’s path.
There have been lessons learned every step along the way, not least at Ibrox - now is the time to test out his conclusions with the Rs.
He said: “Glasgow Rangers are an absolutely huge football club. I loved my time there and it was fantastic, especially the last 12-18 months.
“But this was a fantastic opportunity for me. I am back home, it is the first time I have been home in London for 10 years.
“I have wanted to step out on my own, to feel that intensity and pressure myself and that demand to be a headline number one. Now I have that opportunity.
“I turned down many chances before because I felt that where I was at and the people that I was with were right. But this felt right from the beginning.”
Beale was supposedly the mastermind behind the duel No.10 system that saw Gers sweep all the way to 55 without losing a game last year, a set-up that conceded just 15 league goals despite the reliance on full-backs James Tavernier and Borna Barisic to spend so much time up the park.
Now he’s looking to get creative with a side that finished nine-points outside the Championship play-off spots last year under another former Ibrox boss, Mark Warburton.
He said: “I had a big influence on Steven and Gary’s ideas when we worked together, but now this is a Michael Beale team and it’s important that you see slight differences in that.
“I pick the team now. Before, players could talk to me before because Steven left them out but maybe that’s not going to be my role now!
“I’m happy to be back managing, it has been six years since I stopped coaching Liverpool Under-23s, I’ve been a loyal assistant in Brazil and then with Steven.
“It was important I got back to me and my pathway, my development, the things that I want to achieve. That meant being at the front and leading the team.”
