Steven Gerrard has officially joined the crazy circus that is Premier League management.

With Aston Villa having dropped the axe on Dean Smith earlier this week, the Liverpool icon was snapped up on the back of a superb spell at Rangers that saw him win the Scottish Premiership title.

The step up to the Premier League will certainly be difficult, particularly with Villa struggling in the post-Jack Grealish era, but there's no denying that Gerrard has all the skills necessary to succeed.

Gerrard's managerial pedigree

In fact, during a fascinating appearance on the High Performance Podcast in 2020, Gerrard outlined many of the qualities that make him a strong candidate to succeed at the highest level of coaching.

Reflecting on the environment that he instilled at Rangers, the 41-year-old reminisced: "We wanted to create a culture, where it was a no excuse culture. 

"So yes, we'll make the training ground better. We'll make Ibrox better. We'll get you better kit. We'll get you better food. We'll get you better. We'll take all the excuses away.

West Ham 3-2 Liverpool Reaction (Football Terrace)

"But then you have to buy into having that responsibility, and that accountability. I'll do everything I can to protect you and I'll take as much responsibility and I'll take it all away from you.

"I want you to just go and play with freedom, express yourselves and give me the best version of you. And if we got that collectively around the group, or got the majority buying into that, there was no doubt Rangers were going to improve."

And Gerrard has the silverware to back his chat because Rangers' historic triumph this summer brought an end to Celtic near decade-long dominance in Scotland with nine consecutive titles.

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Read more: The High Performance Podcast hub

Gerrard's silverware compared to his rivals

Granted, that's no guarantee of success in the Premier League, but Gerrard's maiden title sees him rank as the joint-11th-most decorated coach in the division nonetheless.

For someone who's only been in the coaching game for three years, that's not bad going and we couldn't resist looking at how all the other Premier League coaches compare for silverware.

Besides, now that Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti have moved back to Europe, the pack has been shuffled when it comes to plaques and gongs amongst the bosses in England's top-flight.

Premier League managers ranked by silverware

So, taking data collected by talkSPORT at the back end of 2020 and updating it with any trophies won since, we've been able to rank the current crop of 19 coaches by their trophy cabinets.

And minor trophies that are decided by one-off games like the UEFA Super Cup and Community Shield are off the table, so without further ado, check out how Gerrard compares to his rivals below:

=18. David Moyes (West Ham United) – 0

=18. Patrick Vieira (Crystal Palace) - 0

=11. Steven Gerrard (Aston Villa) - 1

1x Scottish Premiership

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=11. Thomas Frank (Brentford) - 1

1x English Championship play-offs

=11. Eddie Howe (Newcastle United) - 1

1x English Championship title

=11. Bruno Lage (Wolverhampton Wanderers) - 1

1x Primeira Liga

=11. Mikel Arteta (Arsenal) – 1

1x FA Cup

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=11. Sean Dyche (Burnley) – 1

1x English Championship title

=11. Ralph Hasenhuttl (Southampton) – 1

1x 2. Bundesliga

=9. Graham Potter (Brighton & Hove Albion) – 3

1x Swedish third tier title

1x Swedish fourth tier title

1x Swedish League Cup

=9. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (Manchester United) – 3

2x Eliteserien

1x Norwegian Football Cup

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8. Marcelo Bielsa (Leeds United) – 4

3x Argentine Primera Division

1x English Championship title

=6. Thomas Tuchel (Chelsea) - 6

1x DFB-Pokal

2x Ligue 1

1x Coupe de France

1x Coupe de la Ligue

1x Champions League

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=6. Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool) – 6

2x Bundesliga

1x German DFB Cup

1x Premier League

1x Champions League

1x FIFA Club World Cup

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5. Antonio Conte (Tottenham Hotspur) - 7

1x Serie B

4x Serie A

1x Premier League

1x FA Cup

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=3. Claudio Ranieri (Watford) - 8

1x Serie C1

1x Coppa Italia Serie C

1x Serie B

1x Coppa Italia

1x Copa del Rey

1x UEFA Intertoto Cup

1x Ligue 2

1x Premier League

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=3. Rafael Benitez (Everton) - 8

2x La Liga

1x FA Cup

1x Champions League

1x FIFA Club World Cup

1x Europa League

1x Coppa Italia

1x English Championship title

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2. Brendan Rodgers (Leicester City) – 9

1x Championship play-off final

2x Scottish Premiership

2x Scottish Cup

3x Scottish League Cup

1x FA Cup

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1. Pep Guardiola (Manchester City) – 23

3x La Liga

2x Copa del Rey

2x Champions League

3x FIFA Club World Cup

3x Premier League

1x FA Cup

4x EFL Cup

2x German DFB Cup

3x Bundesliga

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Guardiola runs away with it

Guardiola really is in a league of his own.

It's crazy to think that the Spaniard has managed to hoover up trophies at such an astonishing rate of knots across spells with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City to win by 14 plaques.

Naturally, the sceptics amongst you will pooh-pooh Rodgers bagging the silver medal when all but two of his trophies were won in Scotland, but there's no denying his class in English football.

Meanwhile, Tuchel's time with Paris Saint-Germain has certainly done him favours in terms of matching Klopp, while Potter and Solskjaer have benefitted from their Scandinavian success.

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Then, bringing up the rear with the wooden spoon is Vieira and Moyes who, perhaps surprisingly in the case of the latter, are the only two trophy-less managers in the Premier League right now.

So, the road map is certainly there for Gerrard to rise up the silverware rankings, even if trophies will be harder to come by south of the border, because he's already flirting with a spot in the top ten.

Only time will tell whether he can bring trophies to Villa Park, but one can't help suspecting that even trophy-less success in the Midlands could lead to silverware at Liverpool further down the line.

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