IT has been a strange week for Alfredo Morelos. He was a petulant villain last Sunday, an exonerated victim on Wednesday and a European hero on Thursday. So it will not surprise Steven Gerrard if he proves to be the match-winner today as Rangers face St Mirren in their opening home league game of the season.
Morelos was sent off just 12 minutes into the opening game at Pittodrie when he flicked out his right leg in reaction to being barged by Scott McKenna. The Colombian striker felt he had let his team-mates down but, as Gerrard suggested immediately after the game, the dismissal was proved to be the wrong decision as it was rescinded on appeal.
Rejuvenated, Morelos scored Rangers’ opening goal on Thursday night and won the penalty for the second as the Ibrox men took a huge step towards the play-off round of the Europa League with an impressive 3-1 win over Maribor.
However, for every smile there seems to be a scowl. Morelos undoubtedly has an edge to his play and the key for Gerrard is to channel it in the right way.
“It needs to be the right edge. It can’t boil over and get to the stage where he lets his team-mates down,” he said. “He’s an important player for us. He realises that and understands. He is still a young boy and will make mistakes – we’ve all made them – but I will give him the attention and support that he needs to help him.
“I’m enjoying working with Alfredo. His attitude and application have been first class from day one. You can see him getting sharper and sharper as each game goes by. He’s in a really good place and enjoying his football. I can see him smiling.
“I had a conversation with him after the Aberdeen game. I felt sorry for him because I felt he was harshly treated. His response has been fantastic.
“I have also had that chat with him to let him know that defenders will maybe target him and how he has to embrace that and enjoy it. He should use it as a compliment that people are worried about his talent and what he can do to them.
“I think he felt he let his team-mates down at Pittodrie. For the 12 minutes he was on the pitch he was at it and looking as if he was about to post a very good performance. I said to him on the day that we forget about it and move on.
“He has baled this team out many times with his goals and performances so the fact that the other lads put a shift in for him, they maybe owed him it.
“I’m more than confident he can make up for the Aberdeen game and he started doing that last Thursday night.”
Gerrard will be hoping there is another spark from his striker today as he aims to rid Rangers of the shocking home record they had last season – losing eight league matches and drawing two.
It was the worst run for more than 100 years and Gerrard had no qualms about blaming it on the inferior mentality of last season’s team.
“It’s not good enough for a team like Rangers. You can’t be dropping that amount of points at home,” he said. “I have seen it happen at many other clubs before. If the team is not right and the mentality is not right or your squad or your team is not strong enough it’s possible these things can happen.
“I think a lot of the games where Rangers dropped points last season was down to mentality and approach to these types of games. We’ve made it clear to the players that it’s not acceptable because we’re not good enough when we can become complacent.
“We’re building something here and we need to have the same attitude and intensity.
“If any players in my team think they can waltz into this game and turn up, it won’t happen.
“I think it’s very important that we try to make Ibrox a difficult place to come for visiting teams, try to turn it into a fortress like it has been in the past.
“So the idea for us is to keep growing as a team and try to build confidence. We are not good enough to pick and choose when we turn up for our games. We have to be at it in every single game, against St Mirren as we would if it was a Celtic coming to town, an Aberdeen or a Maribor. We have to have the same focus and attitude and try to improve our home form from last year.”
Of course, after Saints Rangers will get ready to travel to Slovenia where they will aim to protect their 3-1 lead over Maribor to win through to the Europa League play-off round where they will meet either Russians Ufa or last season’s nemesis Progres Niederkorn.
“It’s a tricky scoreline against a good team,” Gerrard said. “It’s not over, there’s a lot of work to do. But my focus at the moment is picking the right team to start our home campaign well in the league.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel