Reminding Kris Boyd of his goalscoring record against Celtic leads to the kind of grimace you’d get when you ask a Rangers fan about Craig Whyte.
During two successful stints with the Ibrox club, where he found the net here, there and everywhere, Boyd scored just once against their oldest foes. The fact Alfredo Morelos has yet to break his Celtic duck brings a wry smile from Boyd. “I know how he feels,” he said with a sympathetic sigh.
On the home front and in the European theatre, Morelos’ prolific poaching has just about led to opposition teams fielding an armed gamekeeper to combat the Colombian’s plunderings.
Next weekend’s Betfred Cup final between the two Glasgow rivals will give Morelos another chance to end his drought against Celtic. While that particular record will be under the microscope, Boyd prefers to look at the wider impact Morelos has as the 23-year-old continues to attract admiring glances from those keen to lure him away from Govan.
"He has scored league goals, he has scored European goals and he is now off the mark for Colombia,” said Boyd. “What Morelos is doing is generating money for Rangers and getting a healthier wage packet for himself.
"He's going to leave Rangers one day, we know that, and he's playing like a guy who wants to get as much money as he can for Rangers but also as much for himself as he can when the move comes.
"He wants to be able to justify (the money), he wants to be able to say I have done this, this, this. I have scored against all these teams. That is why he wants to score against Celtic, so he can add that to his CV.
"It's only a matter of time (until he scores). You see the improvement from the end of last season. It's night and day. He's a player on top of his game. He's something different, a throwback to the older generation's style of strikers. He's robust and doesn't really bother with anything else.
"With a lot of players now, it's the style, how they look when they play the game but Morelos doesn't care. He's still annoying people, he's in your face, he's angry, he plays aggressively and all of that controlled has turned him into a top-class striker right who looks as if he’s going to score a goal in every game he plays.”
Morelos remains Rangers’ principal striker but Boyd would like to see the artillery bolstered up front. "It's annoying me that we can't seem to play with two strikers now,” he added. “I don't see why you can't play Jermain Defoe and Alfredo Morelos together. People will say, 'they tried it at Kilmarnock that night and it didn't work'. That was a year ago now. Morelos is a totally different player. He understands the game a lot better.”
The Betfred Cup showdown gives Rangers the opportunity to end Celtic’s dominant run in the domestic scene. While the treble Treble winners have been racking up the prizes in triumphant abundance, the tin lid on the can of Silvo polish in the Ibrox trophy room is just about welded on due to the lack of use.
“If Rangers can somehow find a way to win, Celtic will be under massive pressure because it would be the first time they have lost a domestic trophy in three years,” said Boyd.
“The Celtic fans have been spoiled over the last few years, they expect to win. If Rangers find a way, Celtic will be under massive pressure in the league campaign and the start of the Scottish Cup. The fans will turn and the pressure will be on Celtic.”
Kris Boyd was speaking at a media day as Five Star Events and 1st Star Events donated £10,000 to Glasgow Children's Hospital Charity from funds raised at their respective 2019 sporting events.
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