RUTHLESS & RELENTLESS
PREMIERSHIP LATEST RANGERS...7 MOTHERWELL...1
FROM BACK PAGE the 10-man Lanarkshire outfit as they took advantage of Celtic and Hearts spilling points to haul themselves into the thick of the title race.
Gerrard said: “I’m pleased with the players and I am very pleased with the result.
“It was a really good reaction from Thursday night. We asked the players to bounce back and put on a show for the supporters, we certainly delivered that.
“That’s what I have been asking for from the players right from the start.
“We’ve used the words ‘ruthless’ and ‘relentless’ and that’s what we were.
“We tell them to forget the scoreline, don’t think about the scoreline and just keep playing and pushing until the final whistle.
“I said to them at halftime, ‘We are 3-1 up, they are a man down, what are we going to do?’.
“I asked if they were going to continue to get carried away in a fight and in the emotion of it all or if they were going to be calm, if they were going to place with a precision.
“I told them we would get opportunities to make the scoreline as big as we wanted and the players have delivered.”
Gerrard insisted the international break has come at the ideal time to get his walking wounded back. He said: “A lot of the changes were forced. We are very bare up top and out on the sides at the moment.
“Daniel Candeias was suspended and that’s why I put Serge Atakayi on the bench. I’m not sure how long Ryan Kent is going to be out for so we only had two wide players available, Glenn Middleton and Eros Grezda, and they both did really well today.
“It was Grezda’s day. He got a couple of good goals that will do his confidence the world of good.
“This break has come at a good time. Last time we played Hearts and won it came at a bad time.
“It gives us time to get bodies back on the pitch and hopefully the next two weeks will help us do that.”
One of those who should be available for the next match against Livingston after the break will be Connor Goldson who missed out yesterday.
Gerrard said: “He’s got a chest issue at the moment. It’s not a chest infection but he’s getting severe pain around his chest.
“It’s not linked to a previous issue he has had when he was at his previous club. It’s an illness that he’s had for a week or two so he should be fine for Livingston. He played with it on Thursday night but it got worse.”
Meanwhile, Gerrard admitted he hooked top scorer Alfredo Morelos early in the second half as he feared a booking for the Colombian would see him suspended for the crunch visit to Tynecastle on December 2.
The Rangers boss knows Morelos, who scored his 15th goal of the season in the 7-1 demolition of Motherwell, is one caution away from a ban.
And if he’d picked it up in yesterday’s feisty clash it would have left him with only Kyle Lafferty when they take on Hearts.
And having played Morelos in the Betfred Cup quarter-final against Ayr and seeing him pick up the booking that ruled him out of the semi-final defeat against Aberdeen, Gerrard wasn’t about to make the same mistake again.
He said: “If Alfredo got another yellow card he might miss a big game.
“I made the mistake against Ayr playing him. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.”