Rangers need a fully fit and firing Alfredo Morelos.
But right now? The club’s best striker is no use to manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst – and that was proved again at Easter Road yesterday. His red card after coming on as a sub reminded me of the Alfredo we saw in his first couple of seasons at Ibrox. The Colombian is full of frustration right now. Let’s be clear, Willie Collum had a shocker yesterday in the 2-2 draw and played a huge part in Rangers not beating Hibs.
I’ll get on to him later. But make no mistake, it’s a definite red card for my old team-mate. And I think it’s a culmination of a few different things with Alfredo. To me, he doesn’t look happy again. He’s annoyed at not playing. He had a wee go at Marijan Cabraja initially with his arm but it was more to get himself set and protect the ball. But then he had a proper swing and was in full control.
It’s a straight red and there’s no point complaining about it, it’s not up for debate. When Gio looks at both the red cards, I’ve no doubt they’ll appeal John Lundstram’s earlier in the game and it will be – and should be – rescinded. But they’ve no chance with Alfredo’s. He looked, he meant it and swung his arm in the boy’s face.
He’s been out injured for a long time and has been back training for a few months now. Now, he’s found himself out of the team because of Antonio Colak’s goalscoring form. But there can be no excuses for him yesterday. That was back to the bad Alfredo, where incidents like that happened too often. It’s been two-and-a-half years since his last red card. But for a lot of that time, he’s had things his own way. He’s very rarely had competition for his place in the team.
He’s always been the guy who had the jersey. But right now, the reality is that he’s physically not ready to start games of football for Rangers. Gio alluded to that in the build-up to the PSV Champions League first leg.
And for the next two weeks, the manager won’t be able to get him the game time he needs due to suspension. All Alfredo has done now is give Colak more time to score more goals and establish himself as Rangers’ No.9. Currently, the club doesn’t have their best striker available. That can’t be right. There’s an Old Firm game in two weeks and you can bet your bottom dollar, Alfredo won’t be starting that game after missing the previous two.
It’s the same with Wednesday night. In the first game against PSV, he didn’t even get off the bench at Ibrox. And I thought it was telling that when Gio was asked whether he was tempted to use him, it was an emphatic: ‘No’. That was a strong response. He clearly felt he wasn’t physically up to doing the job he needed him to do. A fully fit Alfredo Morelos has so much to offer but he’s not there at the moment.
In Holland, Gio would love to have him for 20 or 30 minutes. But right now, Alfredo isn’t able to do what he has done previously for Rangers, which is a real shame. He’ll have to do a lot of extra work in training over the next few weeks to make up for this time he’s missing. He didn’t help his team yesterday but the referee had a massive impact on the outcome.
It was typical Collum. He always wants to be centre of attention. He was too quick with his cards and was inconsistent throughout.
There were identical situations that weren’t given the same punishments, whether that be yellow cards, red cards or penalties.
It doesn’t surprise me. But the sad thing is, the poor decisions he’s making are now affecting the results.
There’s no doubt that the Lundstram red card is the big one. With Rangers 2-1 up at that point, it had a huge impact on the game.
It was absolutely ridiculous.
Every single person watching on TV, every fan at the ground, anyone who sees it – knows and understands exactly what
that is. It’s a tactical foul by Lundstram to stop a counter-attack. You see it in every game.
In fact, we saw it in the same game yesterday with Jake Doyle-Hayes’ tackle on Lundstram. If Lundstram hadn’t brought Boyle down, afterwards Gio would have been asking Lundstram why he hadn’t stopped the game. There’s no malice in it or excessive force. There isn’t even any aggression in it.
Lundstram is in total control of what he’s doing. He’s running behind Boyle, waits for the back leg to come up and he’s always just going to clip his heels.
He’ll take his yellow, which allows his team to get back in and regroup. You could see the look on Lundstram’s face when the referee produced red – he couldn’t believe it.
It’s an incredible, horrific decision and it has cost Rangers two points. There’s no getting away from that. Had that not been made, I couldn’t see Rangers not coming away from Easter Road without three points. It would have been 2-1 or even 3-1.
Dropping points – even this early in the campaign – is a huge blow to Rangers, especially the way Celtic are playing at the moment. I had a bad feeling that if Rangers’ league performances didn’t improve quickly, they’d leave themselves open to a game like yesterday’s.
They haven’t had the urgency or quality needed to win matches so far.
Even in the games they’ve won, they haven’t created loads of chances – not what you’d expect from a Rangers team.
Now they’re left playing catch-up early in the league, which isn’t ideal at all.
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