If Alfredo Morelos leaves Rangers on a free transfer in the summer, it’s easy to throw accusations at Ross Wilson and the board for not cashing in when he was at his most valuable but, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
Dealing with what we know, we have only ever received one concrete offer for the Colombian and that was the summer before we won the league, Lille’s £16.25million bid being rejected just before they moved on to another target who they paid even more for.
Then there is the benefit of hindsight. The transfer market nosedived during the Covid-19 pandemic and Rangers gambled on Morelos firing us to the league and, ultimately, the Champions League. The added exposure would have seen his value rise even further and he probably would have signed a new deal. Obviously, this never panned out the way that it was planned.
Kieran Maguire also made an interesting revelation when talking to This is Ibrox when he claimed that English clubs questioned Morelos’s ability to cope physically with the demands of elite-level football on a weekly basis when not playing for a side that dominates possession.
Speaking to GiveMeSport, transfer journalist Dean Jones agrees that Rangers just haven’t been offered what they thought was a good enough offer to let him go:
“I mean, in hindsight, it’s easy to look back and say that they have missed a trick by not cashing in on Morelos before now.
“I’m not sure they were ever genuinely tempted enough to sell him, and I’m not sure there have been good enough offers landing at times when they might have actually contemplated selling him either, so that’s been a problem.”
Jones is right, it’s not as easy as just selling a player so that you don’t lose them for nothing, if it was, clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Liverpool and Man City would never see players depart without a fee. either
The only good thing is that we only paid £1m for Morelos, if anything highlights the importance of getting best value for money in the market it’s when a prized asset leaves on a free transfer – not that it makes it any less frustrating.