WALTER Smith last night compared Rangers striker Alfredo Morelos to mavericks Paolo Di Canio and Paul Gascoigne - and insisted the Colombian is worth all of the aggravation.
Morelos, who has scored 28 goals for the Ibrox club this season, has seldom been out of the news, for both football and non-football reasons, since arriving in Scotland.
However, speaking as he helped to launch the Billy McNeill Fund at Celtic Park, former Rangers manager Smith stressed that exceptional talents like Morelos often require special treatment.
And he believes that Steven Gerrard has done exactly the right thing by giving his leading goalscorer additional attention and support.
“Listen, we have had them here before,” he said. “They don’t come in a clinical package. They don’t.
“We have had players who have come into Scottish football in recent years like Paolo di Canio, Paul Gascoigne, guys who are a wee bit off the wall.
“We have had a lot of them. You get them. Do they enhance our football? Aye, they do.
“But everybody doesn’t come in this nice package where they come out there and do all these nice things and everybody says he’s a good player and a lovely lad. It doesn’t work like that.
“I don’t think anybody knew what they were taking on with Morelos. Maybe later on they did. They could maybe have reacted quicker than they did do. You don’t know.
“But what you have got to say is he can finish, he can get you goals. At the end of the day, we all want everybody to represent our club in a good manner, but it doesn’t work like that. There are things you have got to handle.”
Smith is confident that Morelos, who Rangers signed for just £1 million from Finnish minnows HJK in 2017, won’t be sold before the transfer window closes at midnight.
But the man who led the Glasgow club to Nine-In-A-Row during the 1990s believes the South American will depart in the summer and feels that Gerrard must look to replace him.
“Listen Scottish football is in a certain circumstance,” he said. “Celtic have been doing it for years. They bring a player in and then sell him on. Why didn’t they keep (Virgil) Van Dijk?
“If Morelos wants to go we are in a circumstance here where the normal situation for our clubs is to bring a player in and if Premier League clubs want to come and get him it is good business for our clubs.
“If Morelos does leave Rangers, and I hope he doesn’t in the short-term, we need to go and try and get somebody else. Celtic have been doing that better than probably any club over the last few years. There is nothing wrong with that aspect.”
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