Time for Rangers to sell Morelos?

Rangers were beaten in the Old Firm Derby last weekend in a game which ended 2-1 in favour of Neil Lennon’s men, however much of the conversation after the match has been about Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos due to his sending off.

The 22-year-old appeared to throw his elbow towards opposition midfielder Scott Brown on the half hour mark after Celtic’s veteran captain clipped his heels in what was surely a premeditated action in order to rile up Morelos.

The referee handed the Colombian his fifth red card of the season, more than the total amount of red cards seen during last summer’s World Cup, much to the frustration of manager Steven Gerrard.

The former Liverpool number eight said the matter would be dealt with “internally” but left little to the imagination as he vented his anger at Morelos’ poor self control, explaining that he “can’t defend him any more.”

When the boss and fans begin to lose faith in a player, there is usually only one solution. Barring a dramatic turnaround in terms of Morelos’ on field behaviour and attitude, it looks likely that he will need to find a new club in the next transfer window, but could that be a mistake of sorts from Rangers?

Despite his terrible disciplinary record during this campaign, Morelos has been in fantastic form in the matches that he has played, scoring seventeen goals in twenty-seven games and providing three assists.

Those goals and assists have been pivotal to Rangers’ good season and it would be incredibly difficult to find a forward who finds the net as regularly as he does, as young as he is and with as much potential as he possesses.

The board at Rangers should perhaps look to the Luis Suarez cases with both Liverpool and Barcelona, where the Uruguayan got help for his sudden outbursts and focused only on football, which has led him to win trophy after trophy and become the focal point of a successful era for Barca.

Of course, a talent like Suarez is rare and it is probably ludicrous to compare a striker in the Scottish Premiership to one of Europe’s giants, but the point remains that Morelos has bags of potential and he is still young with everything to learn.

With the right help from people around him and outside of football he can take control of his actions, put his head down and give his club everything he’s got every single week. Steven Gerrard, with Suarez, experienced just how valuable a hot headed striker can be to a side when they put all of their attention on football and he will likely try to help Morelos in the same way that Barcelona’s attacker was given help.

It won’t be an easy journey, but it seems this is the final straw. Something needs to be done, either Rangers will let him go and another team will likely have the same struggle to tame him, or he remains at the club, serves his deserved punishment and can be given the support he evidently needs to display his undoubted talent.