STEVEN Gerrard last night said that artificial pitches have no place in elite football after Rangers winger Jamie Murphy suffered what appeared to be a serious knee injury during a Betfred Cup game against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.

Murphy was stretchered off during the first-half of a last 16 tie which his team went on to win 3-1 yesterday and now looks set to spend an extended spell out.

The Scotland internationalist is the latest player from the Ibrox club to suffer an injury on the astroturf surface at the Ayrshire ground.

Martyn Waghorn was sidelined with a knee injury for nearly three months after playing in a Scottish Cup match against Kilmarnock back in February of 2016.

Gerrard, whose side will take on Championship club Ayr United at Ibrox in the quarter-final of the competition next month, refused to criticise the Rugby Park pitch.

However, the Liverpool and England great expressed the view that top flight football should not be played on artificial surfaces in this or any other country.

“We all know that plastic pitches they are not as safe as grass, that’s fact, that’s simple," he said.

“I’m not here to disrespect Kilmarnock and their playing facilities. I know that it’s a big help to Kilmarnock having a plastic pitch, it helps support the running of their football club.

“So I’m not going to show them any kind of disrespect, but my opinion is elite football shouldn’t have any plastic pitches.

“My opinion is elite football and we’re dealing with elite footballers, who earn an awful lot of money, and I think for every club worldwide it’s safer to have a grass pitch.

“Other people might have a different opinion to that, but I think if you ask any manager worldwide they’d all prefer grass and I do."

Gerrard added: "If you ask Jamie right now he’ll say it was a pitch incident.

“I don’t think it’s the first time Rangers have had that type of injury here, I think Waghorn suffered a couple of years back.

“But, look, let’s just wait and see. I don’t want to dive in too quick, we’ll wait and see what the examinations say but we’re all fearing the worst.”

Gerrard admitted the injury to Murphy had taken the sheen off an impressive Rangers victory over a Kilmarnock side the Ibrox club only managed to beat once last season.

“He’s sad, he’s upset, I think he’s fearing the worst," he said. "We’re devastated.

"That’s the only downer for us today, we’re going away on the back of a fantastic victory at a difficult place but it’s come at a cost because Jamie looks like he’ll be missing for quite a while.

“It’s his knee. We’ll get him checked out and we’ll do the tests and the examinations, we hope it’s not as bad as we’re first fearing."

Meanwhile, Gerrard admitted he was keen to keep Alfredo Morelos, who netted his first Rangers hat-trick, at Ibrox despite interest from French club Bordeaux and to tie him up on an extended contract.

“He’s so important for us, he’s out talisman, he’s our top goalscorer," he said. We love him, I love working with him, I want to keep him, he deserves a new deal. We love him and I want him to stay.

Connor Goldson suffered a dead leg and Nikola Katic also suffered a head knock, but Gerrard revealed he expects both men to be available for the first leg of the Europa League play-off against Ufa of Russia on Thursday night.

"They were immense for me," he said. "I’m looking over at them to see if they are okay and they don’t even look at me.

"They just roll up their sleeves and crack on. They kept facing the bombardment and I thought they handled it extremely well.

Gerrard is also optimistic that Lassana Coulibaly, the Malian midfielder who missed yesterday's game with a thigh injury, has a chance of starting against Ufa. "He's very close," he said. "He has got an outside chance for Thursday. If he doesn’t make Thursday he has got a good chance for the weekend."

Elsewhere, Gerrard, who refused to discuss his interest in Hearts striker Kyle Lafferty, revealed he was hopeful of adding to his squad in the coming days and admitted that the injury to Murphy could increase the importance of new signings being brought on board.

On the Lafferty situation, he said: "He is not my player. He is a great player, I like him a lot. But I won’t talk about anyone else’s players.

"We will probably find out in two or three days the damage on Jamie and the length of time that he will be missing for. We have all got our fingers crossed that it won’t be what we are all fearing. But, if it is, there is a possibility we will have to add again."