You’ve let Alfie down
Boss will demand answers from club over PR disaster
ALFREDO MORELOS has been criticised on plenty of occasions for his behaviour during his time at Rangers.
But for once the striker was badly let down by others as he found himself the victim of Translategate. I’ve been his biggest critic at times on these pages but have nothing other than complete sympathy for him this week.
Not for the first time Morelos has found himself on the front page of the newspapers, not once, but twice in the past week.
The first story was of course the car tampering tale where he rumbled a man underneath his Lamborghini on return to his home. That took a twist with reports his pregnant wife Yesenia hired a private investigator who was arrested in connection with the incident.
But the second of the two stories he’s been at the centre of is quite different because in that one Morelos has been a completely innocent victim as far as I can see.
It all stems from the exclusive interview he gave Sky Sports which I found the timing of quite strange in the first place. What has since transpired is a total mess as key answers which were translated didn’t bear any resemblance to what he said.
One of those he supposedly directly accused Celtic fans of racially abusing him which turned out not to be true.
Sky Sports have since apologised to the player, Rangers and Celtic.
The broadcasters invest plenty of money in the Scottish game and have been big enough to hold their hands up and apologise for the furore which takes b **** .
But questions remain unanswered and I’m sure that is where, privately at least, Steven Gerrard will be demanding some answers. You would have thought Sky Sports would have insisted on their own interpreter and that is what they will probably do in the future.
But who did do it and how could they get it so badly wrong? Whoever it was needs their knuckles rapped because they’ve let Morelos down badly.
I read in Record Sport yesterday it was his agent Michael Gorman but if that was the case how did he misinterpret his client’s words? Gerrard will probably be having a word with the club’s PR department to ask why it was allowed to happen.
I know the manager didn’t say much after the 2-1 win over Hibs because he was still in game mode but he might expand on it at today’s press conference.
Gerrard can’t stand over every interview to see what his player is saying. He has to rely on others and that’s why I’m guessing he’ll be speaking to his PR department to get answers.
Ultimately the football side is his main concern and he’ll want to know if any of the recent events have affected Morelos in any way.
The other aspect that has now been forgotten is that Morelos insists he has suffered racial abuse in Scotland which is terribly sad and that point is now being missed.
I’m sure Gerrard will have sat down with him and had a chat about it. When things are going on in a player’s personal life then a manager can sense if his mind is wandering a bit. If the player says his mind is on the game you have to take his word for it.
I always found when you have things going on off the pitch the best thing to do is walk through the doors of the training centre as it takes your mind off it.
It would be easy to put his recent form down to what’s been going on but the biggest factor is probably the three games he missed through suspension.
If you’ve missed three games you do lose that sharpness, no matter how much you do in training.
Now he’s had a couple of 90 minutes and went close on a couple of occasions against Hibs so the sharpness will come back and hopefully we will see that against Hamilton tomorrow in the Scottish Cup.