Gerrard holding one-to-ones with Aston Villa stars to turn fortunes around

Steven Gerrard has been holding one-to-one meetings with various Aston Villa players in a bid to kickstart their season.

The Liverpool legend joined as manager last month after Dean Smith was sacked following a run of five defeats in a row.

With a relegation battle looming, the Villa hierarchy acted swiftly by axing fan favourite Smith and installing Gerrard as head coach.

After leaving Rangers, where he won them their first Scottish Premiership in 10 years, the former midfielder started off life well with two wins in two.

His perfect run came to an end on Wednesday night when Manchester City narrowly defeated his side after a spirited display in a 2-1 loss.

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But the uplift in mood around Villa Park is already clear and much can be put down to Gerrard's man-management.

Gerrard has been going around the squad conducting one-on-one meetings and analysing in-depth their performances this season.

One star looking to reap the benefits is Ezri Konsa, who has been one of the more consistent players at the club since their promotion to the Premier League three years ago.

And he has revealed that he is yet to have his own encounter with the new boss, saying: "I have not done my one-to-one yet. I am just waiting for him to get around to me."

After such a successful career at Liverpool, Gerrard is keen to maintain those standards at Villa and Konsa is over the moon to be learning from one of the best.

"I just really like how he has got really high standards," the ex-Brentford ace added.

"He has that presence. You always want to impress him every day that you come into training.

"He has already said to us from the first day that he came in that he wants everyone to train how they play. That is something that we have really enjoyed doing."

Aston Villa face Leicester tomorrow afternoon when Gerrard will butt heads with Brendan Rodgers again.

The England legend played under the 48-year-old at Liverpool between 2012 and 2015 before the two first met as managers in Scotland in the Old Firm derby.

They faced each other twice, each recording a 1-0 win in charge of Rangers and Celtic respectively before Rodgers departed for Leicester.

And Gerrard has insisted he has nothing but respect for his old foe, revealing he has learnt a lot from his style of management.

"Brendan is a top coach," he said. "He came in at Liverpool at a time when we needed someone like him, in terms of a modern coach who was going to take us forward but also play some attractive football.

"I think the biggest thing was his delivery on the training pitch. You could see quite clearly that he had got a lot of experience and he was a good manager to play for in terms of a personal relationship.

"It would have been very naive from my point of view not to try and learn as much as I can and what I could from Brendan.

"I continued to do it even when we never worked together, because obviously I came up against him in Scotland and I have seen how well he has done in the Premier League, which is certainly no surprise to me."