Rangers are set to sign 15-year-old left-back Ashton Scully on his first professional contract after fending off interest from the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea.
Gerrard lifts lid on Morelos manager at Rangers
Steven Gerrard has spoken about the difficulties of managing the Colombian striker and revealed he plans to “turn a blind eye” to Rangers’ Alfredo Morelos.
The former Liverpool and England captain was in charge at Ibrox for three years when the controversial Morelos was the main player.
He scored 17 goals in 2020-21 as Rangers won the William Hill Premiership title and stopped Celtic’s 10-game winning streak.
Gerrard told the Overlap podcast: “Morelos at Rangers was difficult to manage. He has maverick behavior. He will bend the rules. He will break the rules.”
“When you start a job, you have to set rules, set values for your team, etc.
“Sometimes you have to bite your tongue and turn a blind eye to one or two people, just trying not to get caught by the players while doing it.
“But yeah, he was important to Rangers and I knew he was very important. I knew there would come a time when I could step into a place where maybe he wasn’t as important.”
“That’s why I brought in Jermain Defoe. That’s why I brought in Kemar Roofe. Because when he was going through a period where he was challenging and breaking rules and values, Defoe and Kemar Roofe were itching to play, and they were as good as he was.”
Gerrard left Aston Villa’s Goban club in November 2021 and has since taken over as manager of Al Etifaq in the Saudi Professional League. In hindsight, he said he regretted not staying longer at Ibrox.
“I’m sitting here now regretting that I didn’t do it at the time.
“Also, the conversations we had with the Rangers after we won, the recruiting and financial conversations, it didn’t feel like the Rangers were ready to be back in action.
“It was like, ‘Oh, let’s fix this, fix that, do that.’ The promise wasn’t as strong as I thought it would be.
“Then the offers and opportunities from the Premier League came in. It’s tough. It’s hard to say no to Villa, they’re a great club. I can’t say anything bad about them.”
Rangers boss Danny Rolle demands David Storch sell beloved Sheffield Wednesday star
The Gers are paying attention to “great” players.
Rangers avoid Premier League interest in academy star
According to Scottish newspaper the Daily Record, Rangers are confident Ashton Scully will sign his first professional contract at Ibrox, despite interest from the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea.
The left-back, who is due to turn 16 this month, has also attracted interest from Manchester City, but Rangers have offered a three-year deal and club bosses are now confident they will win the race to sign him.
The teenager, the son of Clyde coach Neil Scully, has already trained with manager Danny Rolle’s first team and apparently impressed the manager enough to warrant decisive action from the 49ers’ enterprise.
In fact, according to the Record, Rolle wanted to include Scully in the squad for the Scottish Cup match against Annan, but he was rejected because he is only 15 years old, so it will be interesting to see how much minutes he gets in next season’s cup matches.
