RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Steven Gerrard's name will only get him so far as Saudi gold starts to look so tarnished

There's a great video of Steven Gerrard before the good times became the bad times. It's surprisingly recent: it was recorded just over four months ago. His side, Al Ettifaq, were joint top of the Saudi Pro League after winning their first few games and the scene could have been any dressing room in football.

Players we wouldn't usually recognize were singing, dancing, banging on tables and walking in on their famous manager, grinning but with a few words of warning. “Just two games,” Gerrard told them, not that they stopped what they were doing. And fair enough. The party had started and so far so perfect.

But he's a pretty wise guy, Gerrard. Serious. To a large extent sensible and serious. And he also won his first two games at Aston Villa, so the gap between a fast start and a happy ending is well known to him.

Now history appears to be repeating itself at a point where Gerrard cannot afford to make another managerial mistake. If they are still banging on tables at Al Ettifaq, the images will not make it to their social media channels. There's also noticeably less of him these days, as novelty fades and even faster when the form stinks. Whatever it does. Gerrard's team are eighth, have not won for two months and have scored only three goals in the past nine games.

It's quite a run. The Saudi riches were not shared generously with Al Hazm, who are bottom of the table and held Al Ettifaq to a 1-1 draw. The same goes for Al Taawoun, who punched above his weight under a manager in his 32nd job and beat them 2-0.

Al Shebab is eleventh, Al Akhdoud twelfth, Al Fayha fourteenth and Al Raed thirteenth. Gerrard's sides, including Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum, were unable to score against any of them.

These are not big four teams backed by the sovereign wealth fund, but the grassroots, filled with indigenous players and the occasional Brazilian drifter.

Al Ettifaq are also not among the designated elite, but they had the backing to sign Gerrard, Henderson, Wijnaldum and Moussa Dembele and sign 27-year-old Demarai Gray after a 36-game season at Everton.

So they are within the Saudi master plan, but these results are not – nor is an average attendance of 7,800 in a stadium built for four times as much.

It's terrible and happens mostly out of sight, except that Wayne Rooney's sacking at Birmingham and Frank Lampard's purgatory have made us rethink the discrepancies between great players and great managers. Gerrard, so promising at Glasgow Rangers, where he won the title, and so ineffective at Villa, where his time has been cast in a cold light by Unai Emery's success, is moving rapidly towards that list.

His name will only protect him for a limited time in Saudi Arabia. It's a slightly worrying sight for someone who has brought us so many great moments and many of us will be hoping he can find height when the Saudi season resumes next month.

But his difficulties, and the fact that Al Ettifaq are in a worse position than when he arrived, also raises the question of where to go when a volatile club gets an 11th manager in six years' time.

I never liked Gerrard's move there. In addition to everything else we say about the kingdom, his decision reeked of a lack of ambition for a 43-year-old.

This gold rush is different among players. Cristiano Ronaldo was at the end of a chapter, as were Karim Benzema and Henderson, and Neymar entered that space – you can understand it even if you don't like it.

But Gerrard was a young manager at an important crossroads in his career. It was certainly too early to cash in at a lower level of the game, especially as he had so much to prove after his 11 months at Villa.

When he had to show he could hack the act, to show he could get off the mat, to make the most of the extra chances all the big names get and to remind us why he was once seen as Liverpool manager-in-waiting, he went for the money.

The chosen route was very disappointing from someone who used to read the game so well.

His problem is that management is as much a matter of appearance as of results. If you take the money and win, you might get away with a short step into a league that is heaven and earth away from the elite of the football ecosystem.

It worked for Nuno Espirito Santo at Al Ittihad, but he was older. He had a body of work behind him and he won the Saudi title and cup. Gerard? Taking the money in your third job and then going backwards at Al Ettifaq would be a much harder sell to the next owner.

The Rooney parallel is clear in this of all weeks, although I have more sympathy for the latter. Rooney tried and failed, but he chose a more difficult path: two championship jobs at Birmingham and Derby County and one at an unspectacular club in the US, DC United in Washington. It didn't work out and that's sport, but he did his best. It's much harder to say the same for Gerrard.

It could be that he can get out of trouble this month and possibly coach them towards improvement. But either way, he has to show that he can make an impact.

If he fails and Al Ettifaq pulls the plug, Gerrard will be given other opportunities because of his profile.

But when we talk about the bottomless pit of Saudi wealth, we must also recognize that reputations can be lost in the same pit.

It is unfortunate and a bit sad that a football great from these parts has put himself in such a precarious position.

Not just referees who have to protect Saka

My colleague Isaan Khan reported this week that Arsenal have complained to Premier League referees about the rough treatment of Bukayo Saka, the third most fouled player in the top flight this season.

If you've been keeping a close eye on Arsenal, you'll see that they have a good point. There have been numerous occasions where he has been the target of a rotating carousel of opponents.

It's an old trick that has proven its worth. You bump the man off and minimize the risk of bookings, so it is a situation that justifies extra care from officials.

But young top talent is also protected in other ways. Arsenal have played 28 games in all competitions this season and Mikel Arteta has started Saka in 24 of them.

Of those, he has played 90 minutes in 15 and has amassed more playing time than all Arsenal's outfielders with the exception of Declan Rice and William Saliba.

This is thanks to 87 consecutive league appearances before suffering an injury in October, from a player who operates at speeds and angles that increase muscular risks.

When I spoke to Liam Brady, who helped Saka at Arsenal, late last year, he used a common theory that this gem of a player might be a little tired. That Saka has returned to his best form is a sign of his quality and hugely encouraging for Arsenal and England in a big year for both.

But the protection he needs is not necessarily limited to those who supervise his matches.