Alfredo’s the jinx in Gers armour
Gerrard: Watch Morelos fly in the next Old Firm game now he’s broken duck
STEVEN GERRARD saluted selfless Alfredo Morelos after the Colombian smashed his derby hoodoo.
The Rangers striker notched for the first time in 15 outings against Celtic to earn his team a Parkhead point and maintain their unbeaten record in this Premiership season.
His manager believes it will kick Morelos on to do more derby damage when the teams meet again. More importantly, the Ibrox boss insists it’s a reward for his dedication and graft.
Gerrard said: “His performance again was selfless.
“He did a lot of running and did well holding the ball up for us.
“It will be a relief for him, first and foremost. He’s had a lot of attempts to try to score here, so – for his own personal point of view – a positive moment for him and it helped us get a decent result. It should give him confidence and belief if we have to come here again this season.
“But credit to him because he’s scored big goals this season and you can’t get away from that.
“When you analyse the season so far, he’s come up with big moments when you rely on your No.9 to step up and score.
“But he should take a lift from that goal because the longer it goes, the more people talk about it. He’ll have been aware of that. With Alfredo, it’s never through lack of trying.
“He’s a winner. Unfortunately it hadn’t happened for him against Celtic. But it’s gone now and he’ll bounce into the next Old Firm with a lot of belief and confidence.
“He has been magnificent in terms of his contribution, certainly of late. He’s scored big goals at key times, so we are really happy with Alfredo. Normally he’s travelling all round the world for internationals but he’s staying behind. He will get some time with his family and be ready for the next game.”
Gerrard was delighted at the resilience of his team as they battled to their 1-1 draw after falling behind.
After the mental highs of title success and the physical demands of two ties against Slavia Prague in the Europa League in the past fortnight, Rangers dug deep.
The result kept the Ibrox team’s unbeaten record plus 20-point advantage in the table and Gerrard said: “I wish people
knew what we’d been through in the last two or three weeks. We’ve done a bit of everything.
“We’ve done a bit of partying, we’ve done a bit of travelling and we’ve had tough games. That’s meant we’ve had to focus a lot.
“We knew there would be times when we had to soak it up. We were playing against good players and a good team, so they would always have passages of play.
“But the proud thing for me is our players never gave up and kept fighting. They showed real resilience and character. We were still going end to end in the last 30 minutes trying to win it.
“We couldn’t do that but it’s still a positive result. Celtic had two weeks to prepare for this and they threw everything at it.
“You could imagine what was being said behind closed doors to them. Our players stood up to that really well and it’s a positive result for us. We’ve won three and drawn one of the last three Old Firms. It’s seven out of nine points this year so we’re OK.
“You could see with certain individuals that we lacked a little bit of energy.
“We looked a little bit drained at times but that’s human, that’s normal.
“The main thing is these players have a real togetherness and a real spirit. We’ll try to continue that between now and the end of the season – and make it even better than it already is.”
Rangers are now just five games from completing an entire league programme undefeated. Gerrard has maintained his stance that winning another trophy in the shape of the Scottish Cup takes precedence over an unblemished league record. The 40-year-old said: “We know people are talking about it on the outside. “I will give you a little glimpse of what is on the inside – it’s all about the next game. “We will try to do it, we will do everything we can and that means we want to try to win every game. It will be tough with a lot of challenges out there. “The priority now is the Scottish Cup. We want to try to do a double, try to win another trophy. But it’s also an opportunity for us to try certain players and try different things, give people game time. “We will try to get both right – try to do that and try to stay unbeaten, just to keep everyone on the outside happy. But it’s a sideshow.”