“And now, the end is near, and so we’ve reached the final curtain” – as a wise man once said, with the curtain about to be lowered on the Rangers career of Alfredo Morelos, if an agreement over a transfer fee can be made with Lille over the next few days.
What once felt like it would be a fatal blow to Steven Gerrard’s chances of success, after a straight forward 2-0 win over Kilmarnock with Cedric Itten and Kemar Roofe leading the line, it would appear that the Colombian international has been deemed surplus to requirements.
His goalscoring form in 2020 has been a far cry from the 28 goals he scored between July and December in 2019 although at Vital Rangers we have always been quick to try and paint an accurate picture and look beyond the headlines.
El Bufalo returned to action in January carrying a calf injury and was rushed back because of Jermain Defoe suffering a similar fate, he clearly wasn’t fit, let alone match fit, having missed a period of training.
Confidence is huge with strikers and Morelos has always been a streaky forward, when he had a perfectly good goal against Kilmarnock disallowed, followed by one against Hibs shortly after, his head visibly went down and with the team struggling to create chances the situation only got worse.
Has Morelos be unfairly treated in his time in Scotland?
Yes
No
Against Braga at home he had three good chances, and on each occasion the keeper made excellent saves, Morelos didn’t do much wrong but he just wasn’t getting the break of the ball that he had in the first half of the season.
Then, the worst thing that could happen for a player who isn’t naturally “lean” happened, the Covid-19 lockdown hit some harder than others and although not as bad as some made out, he did return to training carrying a few “extra pounds”.
Gerrard visibly tinkered with his formation and tactics and Morelos was deployed in a deeper role to get more out of the likes of Ryan Kent and Ianis Hagi which seemed to be working in pre-season – that he provided a perfect through ball for the winner against Aberdeen perfectly demonstrated his “new” role.
But speculation has never been far from the back pages since football kicked off again and he clearly hasn’t looked himself, two goals against St Mirren and a couple of assists make it a decent start on paper but the spark has gone from his game – his head, as the gaffer said, has been “turned”.
It’s easy to forget the almost non-stop hassle that he has had since arriving from Finland, even this season he has been booked for disagreeing with a refereeing decision despite several Livingston players getting away with exactly the same offence – it has never been a level playing field for him.
At 23-years old Morelos has made 211 senior appearances, scored 125 goals and has 44 assists at a rate of a goal every 122 minutes, and yet many in Scotland will insist that he is useless, Odsonne Edouard – who is just a year younger – has just 68 goals in his career and a criminal record but is heralded as a £30million player.
When he does leave, he should be remembered for his contribution to the Light Blues cause – sometimes carrying us on his own – and wished all the best for his future career, not chased out the door without so much as a “bye” or ‘thank you”, free from the negativity and abuse that has been nothing short of an embarrassment for Scottish football.