Rangers go through as Van Bronckhorst gambles and does Man Utd a huge favour regarding Cody Gakpo - The Warm-Up

THURSDAY'S BIG STORIES Vindication Ad There are two kinds of managerial decisions: ones you get away with, and ones you don't. Rangers went off to the Netherlands last night without Alfredo Morelos, the Colombian left behind on the grounds that, according to his manager, he was not physically or mentally ready to play. «As a person, it was a hard decision,» said Gio van Bronckhorst.

«As a manager, it was an easy one.» Champions LeagueRangers down PSV to return to European top table — who else joins them?22/08/2022 AT 15:18 Call it a gamble. Call it a smear campaign. Call it a big bluff from a manager looking to establish his authority.

Or, given that Morelos got a red card after 13 minutes at the weekend, call it a perfectly sensible piece of squad management. What matters is that it worked, and Rangers are through to the Champions League group stage for the first time since 2010. Now, we are but a simple Warm-Up, and we don't quite understand the mechanics of how Morelos' absence led to PSV missing all those chances in the first half, or to the risible piece of faffing around that let Rangers nick the ball for the game's only goal.

But that goal was scored by Antonio Čolak, who is in the team because Morelos isn't, and we can read a narrative. So what does the newly-empowered Van Bronckhorst do with all this authority? We're guessing that he'll shoot for a kind of steely magnanimity, in the hope that the prodigal son can be welcomed back into the fold in time for the group stage. Čolak may have five goals in six games for Rangers, but Morelos has 113 in 228: permanent exile or attempted replacement would be a far greater gamble.