Rangers are determined to fend off interest from Arsenal and Chelsea to sign 15-year-old defender Ashton Scally on his first professional contract.
Gerrard lifts the lid on Morelos' move to Rangers
Steven Gerrard has revealed he will “turn a blind eye” to Alfredo Morelos at Rangers as he talks about the challenge of managing the Colombian striker.
The former Liverpool and England captain was manager at Ibrox for three years where the controversial Morelos was a key player.
He scored 17 goals in the 2020-21 season when Rangers were looking for the William Hill Premiership title to prevent Celtic from winning 10 in a row.
Speaking on The Overlap podcast, Gerrard said: “Morelos at Rangers was difficult to manage. Maverick behaviour. He was bending the rules.
“When you go to work, you want to try to set the rules and have your team values and stuff like that.
“Sometimes you had to bite your tongue and ignore one or two, because you are trying not to get caught by the players when you do it.
“But yes, he was important to Rangers and I knew he was very important, I knew there would come a time when I could find a place where maybe he wasn't so important.
“That's why I brought Jermain Defoe. That's why I brought Kemar Roofe. Because when he had these moments, when he would challenge or break your rules and your standards, Defoe and Kemar Roofe were happy to play and they were as good as him.”
Gerrard left the Govan club for Aston Villa in November 2021 and subsequently had a spell as manager of Saudi Pro-League side Al-Ettifaq. With the benefit of hindsight, he expressed regret that he did not stay longer at Ibrox.
He said: “I regret doing it now, sitting here, I didn't do it then.
“And the talks with Rangers after we won it, the recruitment talks and the financial issues we had, we didn't feel like Rangers were ready to go again.
“It was like, 'oh, let's fix this and fix that and do that.' The promises weren't as strong as I thought they would be.
“Then the Premier League offer comes in and the opportunity, it's hard. It's hard to turn down Villa, a big club. I have nothing bad to say about them.”
Rangers chiefs to force David Storch to sell Sheffield Wednesday star Danny Rohl
The Gers are looking for a “wonderful” player.
Rangers are fending off Premier League interest in the academy star
According to Scottish newspaper the Daily Record, Rangers are confident Ashton Scally will sign his first contract at Ibrox, despite interest from Arsenal and Chelsea.
The left-back will turn 16 this month, and has once again attracted Manchester City, but Rangers have put a three-year contract on the table and the club's managers are hoping to win the race to sign him.
The son of Clyde coach Neil Scally, the youngster has worked out with Danny Rohl's first team and has impressed the coach enough to make the move to 49ers Enterprises.
In fact, the Record claim Rohl wanted to include Scally in his squad for their Scottish Cup game against Annan but was denied because he was 15, so it will be interesting to see how much playing time he gets in the cups next season.
