THERE have been no shortage of highs during Alfredo Morelos’s eventful three-and-a-half year stay at Rangers. The double he scored in the 2-1 win against Aberdeen at Pittodrie last Sunday that stretched the Ibrox club’s lead at the top of the Premiership to 22 points was far from a freak occurrence. But there have, it is fair to say, been a few lows too.

Shortly before the 2019/20 campaign was curtailed by the coronavirus outbreak last year, for example, the Colombian was given permission to travel home by his manager Steven Gerrard. He failed to return to Glasgow on time, missed training and was disciplined and dropped. His side promptly crashed out of the Scottish Cup with a 1-0 defeat to Hearts at Tynecastle and finished another campaign trophyless.

Gerrard has acknowledged in the past that his talented but temperamental striker, who netted 28 times in the first half of last season and then just once in the second, is the most demanding member of his squad to deal with. But the former Liverpool and England midfielder knows he is well worth all the extra effort and has never once considered admitting defeat.

“Alfredo is a guy and a player that I will never give up on because of what he has given me in terms of goals and the help and support that he has given to the team since I have been in the door,” he said. “I will never give up on my players, that’s for sure.

“He is a challenge, of course. There is the language thing. I have to treat Alfredo differently in terms of the language. His communication has got better, but we do lean on Katy Lamont (Rangers player liaison executive), who speaks fluent Spanish, within the club. We use Katy if we want to sit down and have an extended conversation with him, if something is really important.

“But in terms of his treatment on a daily basis or the standards we set on and off the pitch, he gets the same as everyone else. The players get fantastic support and the idea is that we take all the excuses away. So he's treated the same.

“He hasn’t always got things right. But you have to take into consideration his age. He needs a manager and a coaching staff who are going to support him at the right time. You can’t expect him to be perfect, he’s a human being.

“But we want the best for Alfredo in his career. We want to give him that support and that love like we do for all the other players. He is in a better place now because he is on the back of scoring two goals in a Man of the Match performance. So you can imagine he is really on a high at the moment.

“It was really fantastic for me to see him back in the place that we know he can be in, which is scoring goals, high quality goals, at important times. And we are going to need him between now and the end of the season.”

What happens after that is unclear, but it would be no surprise if Morelos, who was the subject of a failed £16m bid from French club Lille during the summer, finally moves on.

Gerrard accepts that he could lose his iconic forward, who became Rangers’ all-time record European goalscorer with his winner against Lech Poznan back in October, and is far more concerned with him maintaining his high performance levels in the weeks ahead and helping the Ibrox club to land their first Scottish title since 2011.

“We will just have to wait and see,” he said. “We will always be respectful of him and what he wants. But the important thing is that he always remembers the support that he’s had from supporters since day one and his job is to try and make them as happy as he can between now and the end of the season. That should be all he is focused on.

“He has got a new member in his family so you can see signs of maturity since that’s happened. His life is in a real good place at the moment. He should just continue to enjoy his football and be the best version of himself.”

As much as Gerrard admires and appreciates Morelos, he knows that having other options in attack has been key to Rangers’ fine form this term. In the past, he often depended on the South American for goals. But in the past six months he has been able to turn to Jermain Defoe, Cedric Itten and Kemar Roofe when required.

“It has certainly given me more options having four strikers and it's given me more headaches as well in terms of selection,” he said. “But I welcome having that amount of firepower in the group, not just to start games but also to call on from the bench if need be.

“When Motherwell scored early at Ibrox last month and we were trying to break them down – the subs were a big reason we went on to win the game. So to have those options has been very pleasing and the board's support with that at the start of the season was vital in giving me that firepower.

“Hopefully, we can continue to maintain our consistency in terms of goals until the end of the season – because that could be the difference. We've got one out in Roofe, but by the middle of next week we'll have four strikers again. That could be a big help moving forward.”

Gerrard, whose side travel to Fir Park to play Motherwell in the Premiership today, is anticipating, with their rivals fighting for European places, a top six spot and top flight survival, some testing outings in the weeks ahead. He is confident, however, that Rangers are well equipped to deal with the challenges they face.

“I predict that everyone will be even more fired up to beat Rangers in the league, to bump or derail us,” he said. “So it's time for us to fine tune, be ready and be focused on adapting to be the best version of ourselves in meeting those challenges.

“I think we've come on leaps and bounds in many different areas but there are still areas we can improve on. We need to be ready to adapt to whatever challenge is thrown in front of us and that will change week to week.

“If you look at our recent fixtures. Celtic came to really high press us and try to regain the ball early. That was one challenge. The previous week we had Motherwell who scored early then put five and five behind the ball. That was a different type of challenge.

“What we have been better at is accepting that contrast in challenge in different games thrown at us. We've managed the situations really well. That tells me and gives me confidence that we're in a better place than previous seasons.”