JERMAIN DEFOE hopes Rangers can reap the rewards of a calmer and more mature Alfredo Morelos during his third season at Ibrox.
The striker topped the Light Blues’ scoring charts last term as he hit 30 goals in all competitions for Steven Gerrard’s side.
But his high-profile disciplinary problems and a series of on-field flashpoints saw Morelos make headlines for all the wrong reasons.
The 22-year-old has four goals from two competitive games so far after netting in both legs of the Europa League victory over St Joseph’s.
READ MORE: Rangers v Progres | TV times, kick-off, odds and team news
Now he will look to fire Gerrard’s side to a third qualifying round berth over the next fortnight as the Light Blues face Progres Niederkorn.
And Defoe is pleased to see Morelos learning from the costly mistakes that he made last season as the pair get set for another striking battle.
Defoe said: “I think he has calmed down a lot. You can see that in games. He is a lot more relaxed and calm. It’s only going to help him.
“To be fair, when I was younger, I was a little bit like that. I remember at West Ham, I got sent off three times before Christmas. I missed 13 games and in the evenings I was just coaching the kids because I had nothing else to do.
“Straight after that, I signed for Tottenham. It comes to a point where you think, ‘you know what, I’m missing games’. These are the games I could be scoring goals in. You can see he is a lot more calm.
“At the end of the day, you want to keep your best players on the pitch.
“Yes, of course [he has developed maturity]. You don’t want to be missing games. It’s as simple as that.
READ MORE: Jermain Defoe: I wish I could have joined Rangers three years ago
“You want to be playing. Especially the way we finished last season. We won six on the bounce, the team were flying and we looked good.
“It must have been tough for him sitting on the sidelines. He can’t contribute because he is suspended. I can imagine at some point he must have said ‘you know what, I can’t be getting sent off’.
“It’s not just Alfredo. It’s everyone. That discipline side is important.
“The manager spoke to us about that. We need to give ourselves an opportunity to win matches and when players are getting sent off, it’s not helping the team. We have to keep him on the pitch because we know he is going to score goals.”
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 here