ON Election night Rangers fans gave Alfredo Morelos their vote of confidence.
He responded by making his own mark in the box.
Morelos celebrates his opener at IbroxCredit: Willie Vass – The Sun
Forget No10.
The Govan constituency got the result they needed thanks to the Ibrox No20.
Steven Gerrard vowed Morelos was a man to rely on and the striker delivered on that promise.
There was late, late drama here with Rangers losing their majority to Young Boys with Ryan Jack shown a stoppage time red card.
Rangers stars surround Morelos after opening goalCredit: Willie Vass – The Sun
But Rangers clung onto power to stay in Europe.
As the teams were read out before kick-off the loudest cheer from the Rangers support was for striker Morelos.
His Hampden misery in the Betfred Cup final defeat to Celtic may have left the Ibrox fans gutted, but it was abundantly clear from the reception he got that no blame was attached to the Colombian.
It’ll clearly take more than a few Fraser Forster saves for the punters here to turn their back on their main man.
You just knew Morelos was going to be a central figure in this game.
Initially there were signs that his luckless misfortune in front of goal was going to continue when he missed a good chance to fire Rangers ahead after 21 minutes.
Young Boys score a late leveller at IbroxCredit: Reuters
Joe Aribo played a cracking ball through for the frontman who timed his run to perfection to get away from his marker.
But Young Boys’ keeper David von Ballmoos raced from his line, making himself as big as he possibly could, to make a great block with his legs.
Was it good goalkeeping or a bad miss?
Just like on Sunday you had to give all credit to the man between the sticks, but it must still have started to prey on Morelos’ mind that things weren’t going his way.
But did he hide? Did he hell.
Morelos couldn’t do that if he tried as he kept causing the the Swiss side problems in the final third.
He had a big shout for a penalty just two minutes after that first chance to break the deadlock, but experienced German referee Felix Brych wasn’t having it.
At first it looked like the official had been kind on Young Boys but TV replays showed defender Frederik Sorensen didn’t do a lot wrong. If anything Morelos went down too easily when he could have got past the big centre back.
Steven Gerrard applauds Gers fans at full timeCredit: PA:Press Association
But it was all so encouraging.
Young Boys were showing next-to-nothing in attack with Rangers enjoying the lion’s share of possession and completely dominating the play.
But Gerrard has seen that before and ended up devastated.
Rangers needed to get the opener to settle everyone’s nerves and it finally arrived on the half-hour mark.
And the visitors only had themselves to blame.
First Niclas Burgy made a mistake to gift the ball to Ryan Kent. The winger’s attempted through ball for Morelos should have been cut out by Sorensen but the stopper made a mess of his attempted clearance.
It allowed the Rangers striker to run through on goal with just the keeper to beat. The entire Rangers support held its breath as one with Morelos keeping his cool to score with real ease.
It was a big moment in the context of the game but an even bigger one for the under-pressure Rangers No20.
Gerrard’s side had chances to double their lead before the break.
Aribo showed great skill to set himself up with Scott Arfield having a blasted shot saved at the near post.
Young Boys’ one and only real attempt saw Christian Fassnacht miss the target with a header just seconds before the interval which was a warning to Rangers.
The away side had a huge support with them on their travels and they must have been frustrated by their lack of threat throughout the first 45 minutes.
For a team that had to win they posed very little danger.
A big reason for that was the hard work being done in the middle of the park by Arfield, Glenn Kamara and the outstanding Ryan Jack.
Young Boys could have gone level, though, after 63 minutes.
And they would have done too without the brilliance of Allan McGregor who pulled off a tremendous save to keep out another header from Fassnacht.
McGregor may be nearing the end of his career but it’s no wonder Gerrard wants to extend his contract.
Had he not been on his toes at that moment then the game could easily have turned on its head.
But McGregor made sure Young Boys were given no encouragement.
The Swiss outfit were much better in the second half, though, with Rangers showing signs of fatigue going into the final 20 minutes.
Jack was possibly fortunate to still be on the pitch at that point.
He was already on a booking when he smashed into Christopher Martins Pereira near the touchline – but the ref gave him the benefit of the doubt and resisted any temptation to reach into his top pocket for his red card.
Rangers could have sealed the victory in 76 minutes but Morelos was denied a second goal by another good save – with Kent too slow to react and race in for a tap-in.
Young Boys kept fighting for an equaliser and in the 90th minute they got it to put the game on a knife-edge.
A drilled shot across goal was turned into his own net by Barisic who just couldn’t get out the way.
The Swiss side pushed everyone forward in search of a winner to knock Gers out.
It was suddenly backs to the wall and Jack was shown a second yellow in stoppage time.
But Gerrard’s side held on to make it through.
Young Boys fans target Rangers star Barisic as they throw multiple missiles at Ibrox
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
