HANDS OFF ALF!
MARK WILSON Rangers reject Bordeaux’s £3.75m offer for Morelos
RANGERS last night kicked out a £3.75million offer from Bordeaux for alfredo Morelos — as they edged closer to bringing Kyle Lafferty back to Ibrox.
The Ligue 1 club have money to spend after selling winger Malcom to Barcelona for £35m and have been tracking Morelos all summer. However, the bid submitted yesterday was swiftly rejected by Ibrox bosses.
Rangers turned down around £8m from Chinese outfit Beijing Renhe for Morelos in January and are unwilling to let the Colombian striker — who has scored in his last two appearances — leave on the cheap. It remains to be seen whether Bordeaux will return with an increased valuation of Morelos to try and tempt a sale.
The 22-year-old, signed in a £1m deal from HJK Helsinki last summer, will have a key role to play when steven gerrard’s side face Maribor in tonight’s europa League third qualifying round second leg tie in slovenia.
He could soon be joined at Ibrox by Lafferty after Rangers held fresh talks with Hearts, opening
the possibility of the Northern Ireland striker’s arrival being confirmed before the end of the week. Gerrard remained coy about any transfer progress yesterday. However, after seeing a £200,000 offer kicked out late last month, he remains keen to push through a deal for the 30-year-old — who scored the winner for Hearts against Celtic last weekend. With the Tynecastle club interested in bringing Lee Wallace back to Gorgie, discussions will continue amid optimism that Lafferty will get his wish of rejoining the club he left in 2012. Gerrard spent time in talks with chairman Dave King over the weekend to finalise their plans for the remainder of the transfer window. Asked about those discussions last night, he said: ‘We have had a couple of chats since he has been over, all very positive. He seems to be in a good place. I’m in a good place. It’s all positive.’ Asked if there had been any further movement in terms of targets, he added: ‘A little bit, yes.’ The 38-year-old has made 11 signings already this summer and feels his squad is close to where it needs to be. ‘I’ve made no secret that if we can add another body to it, I’ll be more than satisfied,’ he said. ‘The only way we’ll need a bigger squad is if we qualify for the Europa League.’ A 3-1 first-leg advantage has given Rangers a real chance of securing a place in the play-off round, but Gerrard will have to plug a left-back gap for this evening’s rematch against Maribor. Jon Flanagan is suspended, while recent £1.5m addition Borna Barisic is ineligible until the group stage. Andy Halliday is favourite to take over the role in the Ljudski vrt Stadium, although Lee Hodson has also travelled to Slovenia. ‘Ideally, we would want Jon available and also Borna available,’ admitted Gerrard. ‘You want to go into these ties with your best players available but we will have a solution and the opportunity will lie on someone else’s shoulders. Hopefully they can go and do the team justice. ‘I trust all my players and they wouldn’t be here travelling if I didn’t trust them. ‘That is why you have a big squad.’