‘Celtic defeat had nothing to do with it’ Gerrard denies Kent was a panic signing

Steven Gerrard has claimed that Ryan Kent wasn’t a panic signing on the back of losing to Celtic.

During the transfer window the Ibrox boss signed Jordan Jones, Jake Hastie, Greg Stewart, Brandon Barker and Sheyi Ojo to compete with Jamie Murphy and Eros Grezda for the wide positions.

Against Celtic a fortnight ago he opted to play without any wingers, blamed the players with the exception of Jon Flanagan for the defeat then picked up on the availability of Kent who failed to attract any interest from elsewhere during the transfer window.

A deal for £7.5m was announced and celebrated with Gerrard insisting that he always wanted to have eight players competing for the wide places even though he opted to flood the centre of the park against Celtic.

“The Celtic defeat had nothing to do with it,” the Liverpool legend told The Sun. “We’d been trying to get Ryan Kent back from the moment he walked out the door. It wasn’t a reaction to losing. We had a board meeting the day before the Old Firm game. Thankfully we got it done just in time but there were times through the transfer window when I didn’t think we’d get him.”

Kent is expected to go straight into the team to face Livingston tomorrow after an outstanding performance in training yesterday.