Hutton ‘surprised’ by Alfredo Morelos development at Rangers
Alan Hutton has suggested issues behind-the-scenes at Rangers may have been the reason for Alfredo Morelos’ absence against PSV Eindhoven.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the former Gers defender was “surprised” that the 26-year-old didn’t get game time at Ibrox on Tuesday.
Antonio Colak started up front for the Bears and played the full 90 minutes, scoring his fourth goal of the season in the 2-2 draw.
Morelos was an unused substitute against PSV and is yet to start a game across all competitions this season.
As quoted by the Herald (17 August), Giovanni van Bronckhorst praised Colak’s “really good” work rate.
Hutton didn’t understand why the Gers manager didn’t use the game to give Morelos some time on the pitch.
“I was definitely surprised,” he told Football Insider.
“Colak played well of course, you heard Van Bronckhorst speak about him afterwards. It wasn’t just his work rate, it was about the goals that he scored and it was what he was doing off the ball.
“I think when Morelos has been out for so long, it’s weird. Colak’s come in and done really well, I still believe Morelos, when fully fit, is the number one striker.
“I think it was an opportunity to go and try and get that lead that I think they need going in to the second leg, Morelos gives you something a little bit different. He can be a bit of a bully at times up front and I think that’s what they were missing towards the end of the game.
“I was surprised, it made me think has something happened in the background for the reason to have him not play at all. He needs minutes within his legs, it’s not just training, he needs to play games. So I thought that would’ve been an ideal opportunity to bring him on but obviously the manager felt that he didn’t need to.“
In other news, an expert has suggested Rangers star Borna Barisic wants to join Nottingham Forest amid ‘£100m’ claim.