According to TalkSport, four Premier League clubs are chasing the signature of Colombian Striker Alfredo Morelos. The Rangers star has attracted lots of attention due to his ability to find the net, but also his poor disciplinary record.
Who are the Premier League teams interested?
Well, the four teams reportedly chasing his signature are Leicester City, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Crystal Palace.
Newcastle and Palace have both been linked for a while now and seem to be the ones in the lead. Meanwhile, Leicester currently sit in the top four and offer the prospect of Champions League football, so surely they’d be Morelos’ first choice.
As for the players each of the teams currently have in that position, Palace and Newcastle are clearly the teams with the most need.
Newcastle have Joelinton, who isn’t a proper number nine and Andy Carroll, who is out of contract at the end of the season… whenever that may be. As well as those two, United also have Dwight Gayle, who is incredibly goal-shy in the Premier League.
As for Crystal Palace, their main striker is Christian Benteke, who hasn’t managed to find any sort of form for at least the last two years at this point. Meanwhile, they have the Ghanaian Jordan Ayew as well as loanee Cenk Tosun.
Both of them could do with an extra goal threat in their ranks. Newcastle desperately need a number nine capable of leading the line by himself, which Morelos would offer. Palace also need something similar, although he would likely be used alongside Jordan Ayew at Selhurst Park.
As for Leicester, they have the incredible Jamie Vardy – although he is starting to get up there in age. As well as him, they have Kelechi Iheanacho in reserve who has proven to be a good option this season as they charge for Champions League football.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa spent big on a striker in each of the last two windows. Last summer, they signed Wesley Moraes and in the winter window they added Aly Mbwana Samatta to their ranks – so a move from them seems unlikely.
As for costs, reports suggest it would cost an interested party a fee in the region of £13m to sign Morelos – that kind of money is pittance to the modern day Premier League club. They’ll be more than happy to pay that, but what will be give them?
What does Morelos bring?
The first thing is goals, and lots of them too. This season, the Colombian has bagged 29 goals in 46 appearances for Rangers across all competitions.
In the league alone, Morelos has bagged 12 goals and three assists across his 26 appearances. In the Europa League he has six in eight, with a further eight goals in eight games during their qualifying run to get into the group stages.
In total at Rangers, he has pulled on the blue jersey 137 times. Across those games, he has managed to find the back of the net 77 times, which is a goal rate of one every 1.78 games in all competitions. The problem is, he hasn’t played enough…
Part of the reason why that is comes down to his disciplinary record. Morelos, for whatever reason, can’t stop getting sent off. During the 18/19 season, he somehow managed to pick up FIVE red cards over the course of the campaign.
Continuing in that vein, he’s been sent off a further two times this season. To add to that, he’s also had eight yellow cards, meaning he’s missed a game thanks to suspension from an accumulation of yellow cards too.
That record is appalling for any footballer, let alone a striker. How he manages to get into the book that often is beyond me – but one thing is for sure, a record like that brings a reputation.
Players will wind him up, if he reacts, you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll react and due to his reputation, will likely be given the old heave ho. The fact that he could miss five or more games every season through suspension alone has to be a concern for the teams looking at him.
Personally, I’d take him at Newcastle for the simple fact that he scores goals. He could be just what we’re missing and, since the departure of Aleksandar Mitrovic, we’ve missed that little bit of fire on the pitch from our players.
What do you think, would Morelos be a good signing for Premier League clubs or is he too much of a liability?
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