I’ve written before about how perception is everything in football.
Take the 1-1 draw against Hearts for example, the result says otherwise but it was our best domestic performance of the season against a team that nobody has managed to beat yet.
Alongside perception is confirmation bias. A preconceived opinion on a player will inevitably lead fans to return to criticise them and will look for their flaws whenever things are’t going well.
In Alfredo Morelos we have a player who is never far from the headlines or the subject of discussion, former Gers skipper, Craig Moore, only this week suggesting that he could do with losing a stone or two.
Nonsense.
The video released by Rangers TV to commemorate El Bufalo hitting the 100 goal mark proves a few of his doubters wrong, for a player that isn’t very good at heading, he has scored a lot of very good headers and for those claiming that he looks heavier this season, again, he looks exactly the same size he did when he nearly hit 30 goals before Christmas in 2019.
Perception is everything.
Morelos’s weight/physique will always be used as a stick to beat him with, he isn’t a natural athlete, nor does he have a low body fat but, you can guarantee that the conditioning team at Rangers have him in exactly the ranges he needs to be in. To suggest that they – and Steven Gerrard – have allowed him to put weight on to the extent that it affects his performances is borderline lunacy.
Watch, as he starts scoring goals, the issue about his weight and shape will go away, just as it has done in every season he has been with us.