Steven Gerrard won’t be happy.
Colombia scraped through to the semi-finals of the Copa America late on Saturday night, winning on penalties against Uruguay after a 0-0 draw during the 90 minutes – no extra-time being played in an initiative I could get used to.
The frustrating thing is, if Alfredo Morelos was getting plenty of game time, the Gers gaffer would probably be quite happy for him to be kept ticking over against decent opposition, however, he has played just eight minutes in the whole tournament.
To make matters worse, the Colombians have hardly been a free scoring outfit, registering just three goals in their five games so far, drawing with Venezuela and losing to Peru in the process.
Reinaldo Rueda has been playing with two strikers, so there really is no excuse for Morelos not to have seen more minutes, especially when you consider that none of his strikers have scored from open play – Miguel Borja the only forward to get off the mark and that was from the penalty spot.
One player who has been given more than a decent chance is Santos Borre, now a free agent, who has been linked with a move to Rangers, the 25-year old getting played both through the middle and, as he started against Uruguay, on the right-hand side of midfield.
I’ll be honest, from what I’ve seen, I don’t think he would be worth anywhere near the reported wage that he is looking for and I certainly can’t see why he is starting ahead of El Bufalo, at least the defenders would know they had been in a game against the Rangers number 20.
Gerrard confirmed that Morelos will be given a short rest before being expect to report for duty, with a semi-final and third/fourth place play-off still to come he’ll be hoping that his star man at least gets to put a strip on – if he does, few would be against him causing the sort of carnage that we are used to seeing him cause in the famous Light Blue shirt.