What now for Alfredo Morelos and Rangers?
Alfredo Morelos of Rangers FC (L) vies with Sebastian Holmen of Tilburg during the Europa League qualifying round football match between Willem II Tilburg and Rangers FC at the Koning Willem II stadium on September 24, 2020 in Tilburg, Netherlands. (Photo by Jeroen Putmans / ANP / AFP) / Netherlands OUT (Photo by JEROEN PUTMANS/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)
Amidst the ‘euphoria’ (maybe not the right word) of last night’s fine win in the Netherlands, one issue, a slight puzzle, does still keep propping up.
Alfredo Morelos, as we know, is subject to intense transfer speculation and has been saying ad-nauseum for almost three years that he wants to leave. Basically.
Lille are said to be bidding or have bid around €20M for him, and he already agreed terms some months ago, but while Rangers fans have mostly fallen out of love with him, there’s a mercenary attitude also building up, understandably, towards him among the faithful.
And, curiously, it’s actually one we may share.
Rangers, up front, are not in the healthy place we want to be. We have four strikers, but none of them are dotting the i’s or crossing the t’s.
Kemar Roofe wasn’t even that fit and hadn’t quite gained match sharpness when he went down injured. He’s out for potentially three weeks, international break notwithstanding.
Cedric Itten “give him a chance”.
Jermain Defoe isn’t getting any younger and we can’t rely on him.
Which leaves Alfredo. He’s the best striker we have – only a blind fool would argue otherwise. He wants to leave, yadda yadda, but while he’s here he’s the best 9 we actually have at our disposal, and although his performance last night was hardly stunning, the one positive note we can give him is his off-ball movement did drag defenders around and made tonnes of space for Ryan Kent and others to use.
He also won quite a few fouls.
We know he doesn’t want to be here, and we’d maybe rather have the money, but equally the window only has 10 days left and that’s a short level of notice to buy a top class striker equal to Morelos.
There is a mercenary attitude building up now where, while we don’t ‘forgive’ the fact he wants to leave and looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, we could accept him in our colours as long as he’s doing his job professionally.
A lot of fans have suggested he’s essential to a title charge, and given the alternatives we have, we’re starting to wonder if that’s maybe not far off the truth.
Would you be happy with that? Or still want him sold?