Alf gives 10-man Gers a vital lead
Morelos rides to the rescue for ten-man Gers on fright night
ALFREDO MORELOS rode to the rescue as his second-half strike gave 10-man Rangers a narrow win over minnows Alashkert.
John Lundstram left Ibrox fans seeing red with his first-half dismissal. But a storming performance after the break and that goal from Morelos set Gers up for next week’s arduous trip to Armenia.
RANGERS..1 ALASHKERT..0
IN the end it felt just like old times.
Ibrox bounced under the lights in raucous celebration of another Europa League victory. With Alfredo Morelos bagging the winner.
But even though that sounds a familiar tale after three seasons of the same old story under Steven Gerrard, the truth of the matter is Rangers continue to look like a team suffering some sort of identity crisis.
Booed off the pitch at the end of a woeful first-half performance and down to 10 men by then, Rangers were staring another early season disaster in the eye.
Finally they acknowledge the urgency of the situation during the 15-minute break. Then they did something about it.
John Lundstram was sent packing before the break for two blatant fouls.
The stupidity of both was hard to believe.
And while the Scouser’s dismissal capped another horrible 45 minutes for this Jekyll and Hyde side, it was followed by such a rousing response it might just give Gerrard hope his team has suddenly rediscovered itself.
Gerrard went full tilt with his line-up. The sluggish looking Borna Barisic was left on the bench with Calvin Bassey getting the nod to keep his place at left-back after a rampaging display against Dunfermline.
That one change aside, the rest of Gerrard’s starting XI had a full-strength look.
With Ianis Hagi returning to a three-man attack, Steven Davis in the heart of midfield and Allan McGregor in goal, the manager’s mindset looked glaringly obvious.
Get this tie done and dusted on home soil in order to rest some legs for next week’s gruelling 5000-mile round trip to Armenia. But, not for the first time this season, it wasn’t clear if all of Gerrard’s players were on message.
While Bassey and Hagi were busting their guts to make an impression, not too many of their team-mates appeared equally as keen.
Yes, Rangers had almost all of the ball against vastly inferior opposition.
But the home side were moving it around slowly and without any great purpose.
The warning signs that this may develop into a long night flashed from an early stage, even though Hagi dragged a shot wide of keeper Ognjen Cancarevic’s goal within two minutes. Bassey then caused some chaos between Cancarevic and his defence when he whipped in a delicious cross from deep.
It was begging for a taker but the Armenians managed to scramble it to safety.
Bassey’s appetite to do harm from the left was becoming more obvious.
Hagi then created the chance of the half.
He slipped a cleverly disguised pass into the path of Ryan Kent but the outof-sorts talisman cracked the top of the bar with his shot when he ought to have been lashing his side into the lead.
Midway through the first
half, Rangers were in need of a breakthrough and a shot in the arm.
Lundstram, on the other hand, was requiring a boot up the backside.
Having picked up a needless booking for a blatant and unnecessary trip on David Khurtsidze, the midfielder compounded his stupidity with a lazy looking tug on Jose Embalo.
Another yellow was followed by a flash of red.
Quite extraordinarily, Rangers were a man down and digging themselves into a hole.
Bassey appealed for a penalty in the dying seconds when he hurled himself to the deck in the Alashkert box but it was a hopeful, overly flamboyant appeal, which was waved away by the Greek referee.
Moments later Gerrard’s 10 men headed inside to the sound of furious jeers.
Gerrard reacted by hooking Kent and sending on Scott Wright, whose first contribution was to tear in behind the defence to fizz over a cross Hagi came close to bundling home at the back post.
Wright then claimed for a penalty when he was wiped out by a combination of Cancarevic and Rumyan Hovsepyan at the end of another surging run into the danger area. Rangers had to settle for a corner. Then, just shy of the hour, James Tavernier fired in his first cross of the night.
It cannoned off the keeper but Morelos was able to hook the ball back towards goal, only for it to be lashed off the line by Didier Kadio.
This was more like it, though, with urgency and energy finally returning to Rangers’ forward play.
Morelos was presented with an even better chance when Davis and Hagi fashioned a chance for the Colombian down the right. Hagi’s cross was pinpoint but from six yards Morelos’ header squirted wide. He made up for that in 67 minutes when he raced into space on to a lofted Tavernier probe. Morelos waited for the ball to drop on to his right boot and smashed a shot through the keeper’s legs to spare Rangers’ blushes. This tie is not over. There will be sweaty work in baking hot conditions needed next week. But then Rangers appear to be making heavy weather of everything right now.