Umar Sadiq’s confidence could now be shot after Steven Gerrard’s comments about Alfredo Morelos.
The Rangers manager called out his third-choice striker for his late dive against Aberdeen. As well as that, the Liverpool legend claimed that his first-choice striker was “sorely missed” against the Dons yesterday.
Rangers struggled going forward for large spells of the Betfred Cup clash. Despite being the better side for long periods, Rangers didn’t make it count in the final third.
This was, in part, down to a poor final ball more than the performance of Sadiq. Regardless, Gerrard went on the offensive with regards to his lanky striker. Speaking in his press conference after the game, Gerrard said the following;
“Morelos was sorely missed, sorely missed. We’re Rangers, we’re a big club and we should play with a centre-forward in my opinion.
“To be fair to Umar, he had shown improvements in the last two-three weeks. Whether that’s enough, we’ll have to judge that moving forward. I thought his performance up until the final bit today was okay.
“We can’t point fingers at Umar and blame Umar. What I would say to him is when you go round the keeper, stand up and put it in the back of the net. Don’t dive or else you’re going to get a yellow card.”
Contradictory
Whilst these comments at first glance seem to be defending Sadiq, there’s two things Gerrard says here that he shouldn’t have done. He’s stated that he doesn’t want to point fingers at Sadiq for his performance, and that would be the right thing to do.
But he shouldn’t have mentioned how sorely missed Morelos was. That reflects badly on Sadiq as it comes across as though he’s not put in a good enough performance. The reality is, however, there were a lot worse performers than Sadiq.
Added to that, calling him out for his dive wasn’t necessary. It was a terrible decision by the Nigerian when through on goal, but Gerrard didn’t need to tell the press about it. That’s a conversation he could’ve easily had with Sadiq post-match.
Gerrard also stated last night that he wished he hadn’t played Morelos against Ayr United in the Betfred Cup. Whilst it’s fair to understand why, all of this is putting Sadiq in a negative light.
If Gerrard doesn’t plan on playing the Nigerian again then fair enough, but the Rangers manager could’ve done with protecting his player a tad more after the game.
