Rangers final word: Grim reading for Alfredo Morelos as golden boy status starts to slip

A penny for the thoughts of Alfredo Morelos when his manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst named the team to play Hibs on Saturday.

With the Ibrox club taking on PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands on Wednesday, the second leg of a supremely important Champions League play-off tie poised at 2-2, Morelos would have anticipated a start at Easter Road. With Van Bronckhorst keen to keep his best players fresh for PSV, this looked the perfect opportunity to unleash the Colombian from the start instead of Antonio Colak.

Morelos likes playing against Hibs. He’s scored 9 goals in 17 games against them in his career – second only to Kilmarnock – and has always been a thorn in the side of Ryan Porteous. Freshening up the attack, giving a hungry Morelos the platform to shine, was expected.

Colak, however, was once again given the nod. The Croat, a summer signing from PAOK, has netted four times already this season. Van Bronckhorst really likes him. But Morelos was the Dutch coach’s talisman last season and sorely missed when he injured his thigh in late March, requiring surgery. He spent the rest of the campaign on the sidelines and his absence coincided with the concession of the Premiership title.

It feels like something has changed with Van Bronckhorst and Morelos. A telling moment came last week, after the first leg of the PSV tie at Ibrox, when Van Bronckhorst was asked by BT Sport’s Emma Dodds why Morelos was not called upon. The Rangers manager, to paraphrase, said he wasn’t needed, as Colak was doing so well in the game.

Some pundits have questioned the conditioning of Morelos, who has always been a heavy-set type of striker. He barrels his way through defences, not giving them a moment’s peace. Recovering from thigh surgery is