Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)

VISITORS NO PAR TO RESIST A BLUE BLITZ

- BY RONNIE ESPLIN

RANGERS roared into the Betfred Cup quarter-finals with thumping 6-0 win over Dunfermlin­e at Ibrox last night.

Kenny Miller opened the scoring in the fifth minute before defender Bruno Alves and striker Alfredo Morelos both scored their first goals in Light Blue and there was only 26 minutes gone when defender James Tavernier, below, added a fourth.

The home side relaxed for a spell but Portuguese attacker Daniel Candeias fired in a free-kick in the 56th minute to record his first goal for the Govan club and Morelos made it six from close range to pile on the misery for the Championsh­ip side.

It was an impressive night’s work by Pedro Caixinha’s side which showed four changes goalkeeper Jak Alnwick, Tavernier, midfielder Jordan Rossiter and Morelos coming in - and which was altered further when skipper Lee Wallace was replaced by Lee Hodson before kick-off.

For the first goal Morelos and Miller did the spadework down the right before the Colombian’s cut-back found Graham

Dorrans and when his drive was parried by

Sean Murdoch the

Gers’ stand-in skipper calmly side-stepped the Pars keeper and fired high into the net.

Portugal internatio­nal Alves then stepped up to curl a free-kick from 25 yards past Murdoch.

Tavernier then fired inches wide from just outside the box before an interrupti­on to Rangers’ dominance in the 19th minute when a 25-yard free-kick from Declan Mcmanus beat Alnwick and came crashing off the bar.

It was Miller who set up the next two goals, his well-timed pass to

Morelos in the 24th minute allowing him to slam the ball past Murdoch and another clever ball to Tavernier being hammered in from 12 yards by the full-back.

Dunfermlin­e boss Allan Johnston brought on burly defender Jean Yves Mvoto for attacker David Hopkirk in an attempt to steady the ship and they made it to the interval with no further troubles.

However, the secondhalf saw Rangers fired up again and when Candeias took over free-kick duties from Alves who had just been replaced by Danny Wilson, he gave Murdoch no chance from 25 yards.

In the 76th minute Morelos pounced to knock in his second after Murdoch had parried a drive by Tavernier.

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 ??  ?? IBROX ROUT Alfredo Morelos celebrates scoring last night
IBROX ROUT Alfredo Morelos celebrates scoring last night

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