MORELOS THE MAN AS STRIKER BREAKS OLD FIRM GOAL JINX
Gerrard delighted with Colombian’s display as he finally gets derby goal
FOR Rangers, 55 remains the number to define their season. A fortnight after celebrating reaching that tally of league titles, another landmark arrived at Celtic Park.
Alfredo Morelos waited a long, long time for his first Old Firm goal. Over 14 blank derby appearances there had been near-things, bad misses and no little derision from the green half of Glasgow.
That’s over now — finished in the moment his first-half header cancelled out Mohamed Elyounoussi’s opener to ensure Rangers remained unbeaten after 33 Premiership games.
The goal was also the 55th Morelos had scored in the league since moving to Ibrox. Of course it was. Splaying the fingers on both hands in celebration, Morelos rubbed in the significance of the number in the story of this campaign.
Steven Gerrard was delighted to see the Colombian finally tick the derby box. There was satisfaction, too, in watching his side emerge unscathed after encountering their rivals at the end of a period in which emotions and legs have been drained.
From the title party, it was into two games against Slavia Prague. Disappointment at exiting the Europa League was dwarfed by huge anger over the alleged racial abuse received by Glen Kamara last Thursday evening.
Rangers did look a little weary at Parkhead. There wasn’t much zip about their play. But with Allan McGregor again blocking Celtic’s path to more goals, it was Morelos who delivered a result
Gerrard (pictured) very much took as a positive. ‘I thought his performance again was selfless,’ said the Ibrox manager of his striker. ‘He did a lot of running and did well holding the ball up for us. He’ll be very relieved with his goal. ‘We are, because 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 No9 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 and he wants to win. ‘He always tries to be a threat and unfortunately it hadn’t happened for him against Celtic before today. But it’s gone now and I think he’ll bounce into the next Old Firm with a lot of belief and confidence.’ Celtic created more chances yesterday. They had the better stretches of play. But it says something about this Rangers side that they once again came through without defeat. The durability developed this term is one important reason why they are champions. ‘I wish people knew what we’d been through in the last two or three weeks,’ said Gerrard. ‘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 coming here that there would be times when we had to suck it up and 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 that our players never gave up and they kept fighting.
‘They showed real resilience and character and we were still going end to end in the last 30 minutes trying to win a game. 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.
‘So our players stood up to that really well and it’s a positive result for us. That’s the (last) four Old Firms and we’ve won three and drawn one. It’s seven (points) out of nine this year, so we’re okay. But I think you could see with certain individuals that we lacked a little bit of energy.’
Rangers have five post-split matches to navigate if they are to complete a league campaign without a single defeat.
That is not what dominates Gerrard’s thoughts, however. He is clear about the priority being the addition of more silverware through the Scottish Cup.
Asked about the possibility of becoming Premiership Invincibles, he 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 is all about the next game.
‘It is a sideshow, really. We will try to do it. We will do everything we can and that means we want to try and win every game. It will be tough, there are a lot of challenges out there.
‘The priority now is the Scottish Cup. We want to try to do a Double.’