Morelos is a shadow of what he could have been — just like the team he plays for
MUCH has been made of that second-half miss. It was Alfredo Morelos’ inability to take advantage of another outstanding opportunity just before the interval in Rangers’ latest Champions League humbling away to Napoli, though, that said so much more about where the Colombian is right now.
Just stale, unfocused, wading through treacle. Like his club, as a whole. One late goal in a cameo appearance against Aberdeen yesterday doesn’t change that. Rather, his story, his fall, sums the entire place up.
Morelos and Rangers saw the mountaintop in the wake of bringing that all-important 55th league title to Ibrox 17 months ago. They had established their names and brands at European level, too. They were both in prime position for lift-off.
Yet, ego, complacency, arrogance and an inflated sense of self can be dangerous mistresses.
In the end, both parties have failed each other spectacularly through their actions and a complex relationship that has always contained so much fire and fury — and fractiousness — now looks likely just to fizzle out. With regrets. And sadness. And words unsaid. As happens when something once bright and brilliant, albeit never straightforward, becomes reduced to a dying flame.
Certainly, it is hard to believe the management are as relaxed these days about Morelos running down his contract as they claimed to be after turning down a £16.25million offer from Lille back in 2020.
The whole thing is quite unfortunate to watch, in a way. Yet, everyone involved must take their share of the blame.
That Morelos is a shadow of the player who lit up the Europa League during that purple patch of 2019/20 — scoring so many of the goals that eventually helped him become the club’s record scorer in UEFA competition ahead of Ally McCoist — was confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt in those closing moments of the opening period in the Diego Armando Maradona Stadium on Wednesday night.
Scott Wright plays him through with a ball from midfield. He’s got the run on Napoli defender Leo Ostigard. Despite having been put through the mincer, it looks like Rangers might, somehow, be able to get in just 2-1 down at half-time.
Yet, within nanoseconds, the truth becomes evident. The hope dies. This is not the Morelos of 2019. Nowhere near it.
This is the guy who was dropped from the squad just a couple of months back because of his fitness, attitude and the view certain team-mates had of him — yet was never really dealt with properly — and he’s just not on it any longer. His heart doesn’t look in it.
There’s no zip to get Morelos clear. He’s ponderous, lacking intent and drive, as he trundles towards the area. Ostigard gets in a tackle and the eventual effort is weak and easily dealt with by goalkeeper Alex Meret.
In that moment, you see what Morelos has become. What’s more, scouts and directors of football across the game also see what he has become.
Be sure there will be no £16m offers for him in the next window, although that became a pipe dream anyway when Rangers allowed his contractual situation to meander along to the point where he can leave for nothing rather than deciding to stick or twist.
Yes, Morelos also missed that sitter from yards out after the break, appearing to step over a ball in from Ryan Kent. He has that in his locker, though. He isn’t a great finisher. How many of his goals come from crisp, clean contact?
Who could forget him hitting the post from a yard out when 3-2 down at home to Celtic during the glory days of Pedro Caixinha or putting the ball over the bar from pretty much on the goalline against Ayr United in a cup game at Somerset Park?
It’s just that there was always so much more to his game to make up for that. Not now, however. He just looks like someone unhappy and unsettled. Earlier in the season, it looked encouraging that manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst was positive about Morelos signing a new deal.
Lots of things looked different back then, though. The player, for one, hadn’t been cut from the squad because of the state he was in. No one realised that the Rangers board, with the amazing platform of a Europa League final appearance to build on and a fanbase fully engaged, would not spend any of the money guaranteed by Champions League qualification on the squad.
And here we are. In a crazy situation where a player rated at £20m by the Ibrox board two years ago looks likely to walk for nothing in the summer.
They could push ahead with offering that new deal, but does it make sense when he looks as demotivated as this? You could look for a bargain-basement sale in January providing a replacement can be sourced, but who would buy? Morelos has always been a liability. However, he is now offering nothing onfield to compensate. We’re left purely with the sullen expressions and the return to elbowing opponents and getting sent off.
From rejecting multi-millions, where do Rangers really have to turn other than just cutting their losses and letting him go?
That failure to cash in when Lille came in hard, get the ‘player-trading model’ up and running long before Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey moved on, give Morelos the move he spent every summer angling for on Colombian radio, has just blown up in their faces.
At selling clubs — and that’s what Rangers are — players need to be punted when they are hot and the market is there. Keeping ambitious individuals too long is no good for anyone. It is all there as clear as the nose on your face with Morelos.
Yet, the Ibrox board and sporting director Ross Wilson — yes, he’s somehow still in a job — knew better. Another example to add to their War and Peace-sized catalogue of bad calls.
Mind you, the way Morelos is being used by Van Bronckhorst is equally confusing. He can’t start a game in the league, but he gets pitched in against Liverpool at Anfield and Napoli home and away. It is almost like he is being set up to fail.
The use of a number of players is most peculiar. Borna Barisic, with punters on his case because he has clearly been going into his shell, had been getting played week in, week out until midweek. Why run the guy into the ground when you have committed the best part of £5m to a Turkey international in Ridvan Yilmaz who just sits on the subs bench?
Likewise, James Tavernier, who plays every week because there is no proper back-up, looks burnt out.
Malik Tillman, whose early-season form feels like a mirage, gets played in all sorts of positions.
Rabbi Matondo looks a waste of £2.8m, but he can’t get a game in his natural position of left-wing. And against Livingston last weekend, Steven Davis is asked to be an attacking midfielder, while Scott Arfield starts wide.
That’s before we have even got to a ludicrous goalkeeping situation, which sees a man about to turn 41 back in the team having waved goodbye at last season’s Scottish Cup final and started the season deemed no longer good enough.
In among all that, Kent, thanks to another monumental failure to manage assets, is about to enter the last six months of his deal as well.
Who knows what you do with him? If someone offered decent money in January, you would probably sell. But who will offer decent money given how badly he is playing?
The thought of watching him walk out the door for zilch when Leeds were understood to be ready to pay £15m last year must be too much to bear for Rangers punters.
Morelos leaving under those circumstances is bad enough. But he’s gone. And he has to go, this walking embodiment of his current club. A spiralling whirl of wrong decisions, wrong attitudes and seeing all sorts of incredible opportunities turn to mush in your hands.