STEVEN GERRARD insists Alfredo Morelos should take the attention he receives from outside of Ibrox and from opposition players as a compliment after proving he is the best striker in Scotland this season.
The Colombian has enjoyed a terrific first half of the campaign under the guidance of Gerrard and has hit 20 goals already this term as Rangers have manoeuvred themselves into title contention in the Premiership.
Morelos has become the player that fans love to hate when they face Rangers and he has often been targeted by rivals as they attempt to provoke a reaction from him and stifle his attacking threat.
The forward found himself at the eye of the storm once again in the aftermath of the Old Firm win over Celtic as three incidents involving Scott Brown, Ryan Christie and Anthony Ralston were repeatedly highlighted in certain quarters.
But boss Gerrard has no fear that the undue attention Morelos receives will have a negative impact on the 22-year-old as he looks to go from strength to strength this term.
He said: “Everyone singles out Alfredo - he’s a target for everyone. But we see it as a compliment because he’s a terrific player.
“In the first half of the season he scored 20 goals. He’s been the best striker in the league by a country mile so he should see his treatment as a compliment -I would if I was him.
“I can assure everyone that we are working with Alfredo and he’s certainly doing his best to try and improve his discipline on the pitch.
“He is very young, he is a target. He gets kicked from pillar to post in the majority of games and teams set out to try and stop him and the only way they can stop him is to be physical with him.
“But we get on with it, he gets on with it. He handles it in the main very well. Of course he’s made a couple of mistakes along the way but doesn’t everyone at his age?”
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