STEVEN GERRARD is confident Alfredo Morelos won't overstep the mark in his Europa League battle with Pepe and rule himself out of the crucial Porto clash at Ibrox.
The Light Blues have made the trip to the Estádio do Dragão with one win and one defeat from their Group G clashes with Feyenoord and Young Boys and Morelos has been booked in both fixtures.
Another yellow card this evening would incur a suspension for the return clash in a fortnight and the Colombian faces a tough test against Champions League and European Championship winner Pepe as the Portuguese lines up at the heart of the Porto defence.
READ MORE: Rangers issue warning to fans: Give UEFA no cause to sanction us further
Gerrard said: "It is two top players that like to play the game with a lot of emotion so it will be interesting and fascinating, if he is selected!
"Yeah, it will be an interesting one and Buff will be well aware that he needs to channel his aggression in the right manner.
"Hopefully we can come through without the situation where we miss home for the home game. I look at where we are now in the group and obviously we are coming over here to try and take something from the game. But I think our two home games could be key."
The tussle with Pepe could be an intriguing one if Morelos leads the line for the Gers and looks to fire Gerrard's side to a huge Group G win.
The 36-year-old is no stranger to the dark arts in the game but Gerrard won't use Morelos, so often a target for opposition teams, to try and get at the Portuguese stopper.
He said: "No, we don’t go out to necessarily wind anyone up. We focus on our players and our job and focus on doing everything we can in a positive way.
"We don’t want to lose focus by trying to get someone booked or sent off. I don’t think that is the right way to go about it."
Morelos netted his 15th goal of an impressive campaign against Hearts on Sunday as Rangers dropped two crucial Premiership points.
READ MORE: Ryan Jack confident Rangers will bounce back from Hearts disappointment in Porto clash
The 23-year-old was allegedly subjected to racist abuse from the home crowd at Tynecastle and an investigation has been launched by the Jambos board and Police Scotland.
Gerrard said: "We haven’t had the chat. Alfredo is fine. He seems happy.
"My door is always open to any player to speak about any subject but I am not the type who will search for it.
"Alfredo was fine on the bus after the game and I’ve spoken to him on other things and left it to him if he wants to have the chat. He hasn’t mentioned it to me but my door is always open."
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