Rangers 5-0 Kilmarnock: Alfredo Morelos hits four in cup rout

Alfredo Morelos thumps home his hat-trick strike to make it 4-0 to Rangers on a night where the Colombian was unstoppable. Picture: SNS

Morelos, the temperamental 22-year-old whose alchemic properties for Steven Gerrard’s side continue to prove utterly remarkable, showed the very best of himself courtesy of a four-goal haul that only was to be lauded to the heavens. In contrast, referee Alan Muir, in concert with his assistant Drew Kirkland, produced hellish decisions that deserve to be criticised.

Inside the first six minutes we had our game’s headline hoggers ensure they would continue to hog the headlines. And on the night they ensured the outcome was determined when Steve Clarke’s side were reduced to ten men after keeper Daniel Bachmann was sent off with his team a goal down and centre-back Alex Bruce about to be withdrawn through injury.

The contest was played against the backdrop of high-level meetings and moves to bring in referees from outside the country to take the heat off the indigenous, inveterate mistake-makers adjudicating on our game. Muir, then, would have hoped to have an evening where he would not come under the spotlight that has been wilting for some of his colleagues. However, he denied himself that right as early as the second minute when Eamonn Brophy was taken down by Joe Worrall in the box only for the referee to wave aside furious claims for a penalty from the Kilmarnock attacker.

It wasn’t certain what Muir thought he saw, or what was communicated to him by Kirkland, when he made the second crucial decision on the night in dismissing visiting keeper Bachmann for felling Glen Kamara in the box as Rangers prepared to take a corner. Television replays seemed to show the Austrian inadvertently catching the midfielder with little force after he had thrust his hands up as keepers do in readying themselves for a corner. Kamara crumpled as if he had been bazooka’d and, with the crowd mystified as to what was going on, he was still there as Muir showed a disbelieving Bachmann the red card.

Such judgment calls did a disservice to the efforts of Morelos on the night. The Colombian tends to prove football’s answer to a PT Barnum creation owing to his ability to claim centre stage and demand rapt attention. But his goals won’t be given the sole billing they deserved from last night’s Ibrox entertainment.

The striker has bustle and burrowing powers, not to mention brilliant anticipation, and a thunderous finish. All these attributes were on display throughout the night, which, in a playing sense, belonged to him from the moment he claimed a sixth minute opener to set this tie on the way to being one that sustains Rangers’ season. Gerrard had acknowledged that the only realistic prospect of a trophy from the season for his team rests with this competition following the insipid efforts that brought a scoreless draw against St Johnstone at Ibrox on Saturday that leaves them eight points adrift of Celtic in the Premiership.

The Rangers manager acknowledged the lack of a cutting edge, and player capable of conjuring up matchwinning moments, when his team were deprived of Morelos, as they were at the weekend through suspension.

And within six minutes that one-man strikeforce was showing what he can offer when he was on hand to turn over a Daniel Candeias cross from the right from all of one yard. It seemed simple, but Morelos makes goalscoring appear deceptively so. It was in the 45th minute that he netted a not dissimilar second. Candeias’ ball in was this time whipped head height, Morelos despatching the ball into the net from all of two yards.

His strength and appetite for destructive scoring moments made him a figure a bedraggled Kilmarnock – who seemed resigned to their fate when Bachmann departed – just couldn’t quell.

The second half of the Morelos show resumed a minute after substitute Andy Halliday, pictured inset, had produced a crisp strike for Rangers’ third in the 77th minute, the player hardly on the field before he played a one-two with Ryan Kent before unleashing a whizzing drive.

Morelos ensured the focus switched to him again in an instant when he fashioned a thumping hat-trick strike. Candeias sent him through and the forward did the rest, giving welly to a effort that flashed past Jamie MacDonald at his near post. His final salvo of the night, which took his tally for the season to 27, was the result of hapless defending that he punished with clinical finishing when he was able to intercept a pass on the edge of the area before lashing a low effort into the far corner. The only thing capable of stopping Morelos seems to be himself, with another spell on the sidelines to follow this weekend as his team take on Hamilton, which will be  the final game of his three-match ban.