STEVEN Gerrard described a proposed £8million bid for Alfredo Morelos as “disrespectful” as the Rangers manager again insisted his top goal-scorer was not for sale during this transfer window.

French side Nice are credited with interest in the 22-year-old Colombian and will hardly be the only club to have noticed how well the striker has been playing this season.

Gerrard admitted that every player has a price but the price quoted was far too low for Morelos who has 20 goals this season.

“We don’t want to sell,” insisted the Rangers manager. “The board don’t won’t to sell. But we totally respect Alfredo and his situation. I’ve been made aware that they are preparing an £8m bid but they are wasting their time. It’s nowhere near enough and the player isn’t for sale.

“Every single player has a price at this football club. I’m not naïve enough to be sitting here saying that none of them are for sale ever.

"But there’s respect that I think Rangers deserve, there’s respect the player deserves and myself. Whoever it is who’s preparing an £8m bid for Alfredo is disrespecting Alfredo first and foremost.

‘He’s the top scorer in the league and there have been players who have gone for double that amount that don’t scorers many goals as him. So I think it’s very disrespectful first and foremost to Alfredo, to the club and me third.

The board will have the final say. They will probably ask me and I’ll say either yes or no in my opinion. But the board own the club. Dave King owns it so he’ll have the final say.”

Morelos could have moved from Rangers 12 months ago with a lucrative switch to switch to the Chinese league mooted at the time.

He stayed but his early season form deserted him and there was a period when the transfer talk appeared to affect him on and off the park.

However, Gerrard was adamant there would be no repeat and said: “It’s not a concern because I’ll play players that are settled. I’ll only start players who are focused on the job we’ve got to do. All the players are paid extremely well to be professional and respect the club.

"If I witness any player who gets unsettled by outside noise I’ll take them out.”

Rangers travel to Kilmarnock tonight and with a second league away game to come no Sunday at Livingston, it means two plastic pitches within five days – which does not impress the Rangers manager.

When asked about the problems these back-to-back fixtures could throw up, Gerrard said: “I’ll answer the question but let me be more brutal for you. There shouldn’t be plastic pitches in the Scottish Premiership.”

And he added: “What I would say is that I have to look very closely at how we recover after the first game. When you play on plastic, it does take longer to recover. Your joints ache for that little bit longer, your body takes maybe an extra 24 hours to recover.

"So we are aware of that. We will just have to see how the players react after the first game before we make decisions.

“We have got a difficult start to the second part of the season. There is no doubt about it. Two away games on plastic is not ideal. But we will take them individually. Kilmarnock we will try to deal with first. We are going there to try to win the game.

"It’s an opportunity again to send another statement that we have got intent and we do want to be in the race. Before we talk about titles and stuff like that, we have to still continue to earn the right to compete and be in the title race before we talk about winning it."