Alfredo Morelos' Rangers tactical evolution analysed

The 25-year-old, who joined in 2017 from HJK Helsinki, was signed during the fraught tenure of Pedro Caixinha and has arguably been Rangers’ most important player year-on-year since Steven Gerrard arrived in Govan, alongside James Tavernier.

In the summer of 2020, it was Lille that were credited with having had a bid rejected for the forward. This time around Portuguese outfit Porto are said to be Morelos’ most likely destination.

Rangers do need to sell this summer and given his profile, age and value, Alfredo could well be the chosen departure.

Here, the Rangers Review analyse how Morelos’ role evolved in our title-winning season to demonstrate the gap he would leave if this summer does indeed bring an end to his spell in Glasgow’s southside.

Rangers’ previous overreliance on Morelos

Before that, let’s set the scene of a pre-Covid Rangers side that have in past seasons depended on Morelos to carry the team’s goalscoring burden.

In 2018/19, Morelos scored 30 goals in all competitions while Tavernier had 17 strikes (14 of which were penalties) to his name and Scott Arfield 12. Jermain Defoe was the next highest scoring forward with eight goals after joining in January. Often if sides could stop Morelos, they could stop Rangers.

In the curtailed 2019/20 campaign Morelos notched 29 goals, while only Defoe matched double figures with 17 strikes. Joe Aribo and Arfield scored nine times each from midfield and Ryan Kent managed eight goals. With Defoe and Morelos rarely starting together, Rangers only had one real goalscoring threat in any given starting 11.

That dependence shifted this campaign. Morelos had his lowest-scoring season since arriving in the UK with a 17-goal haul and as such, numbers came from elsewhere. Tavernier got 19 (including eight from open play), Kemar Roofe 18, Ryan Kent 13, Ianis Hagi, Connor Goldson and Aribo eight and Defoe and Arfield seven each. Cedric Itten chipped in with six goals, including two vital strikes against Motherwell. By the time the league had been won in early March, Morelos had scored just 10 league goals.

Rangers have evolved into a team that has goal threats right throughout their side. Now stopping Morelos does not equate to stopping Rangers.

But why has that happened? Naturally it’s not down to one sole reason. A number of key elements of Rangers’ play have ‘clicked’ this year, whether that be their record-breaking defence or the improvement of key players such as Kent and Tavernier offensively.

However, it is also in part due to Morelos’ role this season which is starkly different in some aspects to the all-action focal point he once was at the start of Gerrard’s reign.

How has Morelos’ role changed?

There is a clear evolution in Morelos’ role in the side that won title number 55, compared to previous seasons. This is shown by a number of key statistics.

In the 2018/19 season Morelos played 3908 minutes for Rangers, scored 30 goals (outperforming his xG (expected goals) tally of 26.91), assisted four, had 261 touches inside the opposition area, made 71 progressive runs and 34 interceptions.

In the 2019/20 season Morelos played 3319 minutes for Rangers, scored 29 goals (higher than his xG of 27.03), assisted seven, had 273 touches inside the opposition penalty area and made 58 progressive runs along with 40 interceptions.

In the 2020/2021 season, Morelos played a near identical 3362 minutes, scored 17 goals (slightly underperforming his xG of 20.22), assisted seven goals, and had 188 touches in the penalty area, while making 36 progressive runs and 64 interceptions.

To put these into context, we’ve split the evolution of his role into three areas to demonstrate how Rangers have developed past their dependence on Morelos as a talisman. Those being, his increasing involvement in Rangers’ build-up play, what a decrease in his progressive runs indicates and the important role played by Roofe in both Rangers’ and Morelos’ evolution.

Involvement in build-up play

It is customary now to see Morelos drop deep in an attempt to supplement and support Rangers’ build-up play through the centre of the pitch. Here is one of many examples from last season in a match against Aberdeen; all of the Rangers midfield is ahead of him aside from Steven Davis (with Tavernier out of shot).

Primarily, dropping this deep does one of two things. It either leaves Morelos free to turn and switch play or advance up the pitch (if the opposing side mark zonally and allow him to drift into midfield unmarked as seen above). Alternatively, it means he pulls a defender out of possession and leaves space in the opposing back line to exploit.

The above stats tell us a number of things in relation to Morelos’ role. Notably, he is spending less time in the opposition area, touching the ball almost 100 times less in 20/21 compared to 19/20 despite a near identical sample size of playing time. Last season, he was far more often ready to receive the ball and help progress possession than in previous years.

For example, he received an average of 14.6 passes per game in the 18/19 season compared to 23.7 last season, meaning his team-mates are seeking him out more often when in possession.

That’s a reasonably high number for a forward and comparable to Roberto Firmino’s average of 28.77 received passes per game last season, a player who is well known for the role he plays in Liverpool’s build-up play. Comparably a more ‘penalty box’ high-level forward such as Romelu Lukaku, who’s not expected to support build-up to the same extent, received 11.56 passes per game at Inter Milan last season.

Further, the Colombian attempted 44 long passes in 20/21 compared to 27 in 18/19 and 355 backward passes compared to 257 in 18/19. Both show he is dropping out of the front line into pockets of space where he can receive and either bounce the ball backwards or turn and switch play to the flanks.

Notice the above comparisons are made between season 18/19 and 20/21. In 19/20 Morelos played 3319 minutes, attempted 51 long passes, 320 backward passes and received 21.9 passes per game.

Showing, his role had already began to evolve to display deep-lying attributes in season 19/20, Rangers perhaps just didn’t have the personnel or system to compliment his evolution.

As aforementioned, opposing central defenders have a choice when Morelos makes this type of movement into midfield. Either, they follow his run or allow him to drop unaccompanied. While the latter protects against the risk of space opening up, it does allow Rangers to create central overloads which in turn opens up space around the pitch.

Here is an example in the post-split 2-1 win over Hibs.

Morelos drops off the forward line into midfield.

He bounces a backwards pass to Steven Davis. Notice Paul Hanlon, playing as the left central defender, is not pulled from his position. While this means Hanlon is not vacating space that could be exploited, Rangers now have a three v two overload against the visiting midfield.

Jackson Irvine’s body position shows he is trying to close down Davis, as the threat of Morelos is occupying Alex Gogic who in this frame is reverting his attention back to the ball. Because of the threat of an overload, Martin Boyle is subsequently dragged across to block Kamara’s direct passing lane into the forward line, because Irvine has been pulled away from his opposing central midfielder (Kamara).

Morelos’ position means that Hibs’ two central midfielders are protecting the threat of an overload on the right, Rangers are therefore able to utilise one of their most dangerous attacking weapons, Borna Barisic’s delivery from the left. Boyle’s body shape shows him protecting the direct ball into Kent to maintain a narrow shape, thus showing Kamara away from goal and towards the flank.

Barisic has the time to set himself and whip in a perfect delivery which is met by Roofe. Only a strong stop from Ofir Marciano keeps the score down. Crucially, Roofe’s inclusion in the team, which will be touched upon, means Morelos can drop in and create these situations while Rangers maintain their offensive depth.

This situation demonstrates why Morelos is taking less touches in the opposition box and is playing more backward passes, as Roofe can occupy the defence while the Colombian drops deep to support build-up.

Morelos’ deeper positions also allows him to help lead Rangers’ defensive efforts. In 20/21 he almost doubled his interceptions from 18/19 from 34 to 64, demonstrating his improvement without the ball and indicating one of the multitude of reasons that Rangers’ defence has improved.

Fall in progressive runs

One of the most interesting changes in Morelos’ game is his drop in progressive runs, which have fallen from 71 in 18/19, to 58 in 19/20, to 36 in 20/21. A progressive run is defined as a continuous ball control by one player attempting to draw the team significantly closer to the opponent goal. A run is logged by Wyscout as progressive if it brings the ball at least 10 metres closer to the goal if starting and ending in the opponents half, or at least 15 metres if starting in the defensive half and ending in the opponents half.

Progressive runs are a Morelos trademark. He is so efficient at rolling a defender and carrying his side up the park, normally from the right wing or the right half space and often after a ball from Tavernier. Here are a few examples from season 19/20 when he utilised this threat regularly.

In the first frame, Rangers’ 1-1 draw against Young Boys in the Europa League group stage, Morelos performs a custom roll of his man to break the line and get in behind the defence. In this particular game he made a season-high seven progressive runs, often taking his team up the park after a spell of pressure from the Swiss opposition on the final matchday of the group stage.

The following shots feature a similar move in which Morelos single-handily carries his team into the opposition half against Feyenoord. He made five such runs in this match which had a similar game state to the Young Boys encounter, with Rangers taking an early lead in a European fixture and playing to protect it.

Rangers are far less reliant on this type of transition to progress the ball domestically and across the board Morelos is making this movement less, often dropping deeper instead as shown.

Morelos only made more than two progressive runs per match this season on two occasions. One being in Rangers’ 3-3 draw with Benfica and the other their 1-0 win over Livingston towards the end of last season. The former game was against a higher level of opposition and, despite Benfica’s 10 men, Rangers relied on this move twice in the first 20 minutes while the game was 11 vs 11 to advance up the pitch. The third progressive run assisted Glen Kamara’s goal.

The drop off of this type of move is likely partly explained by both Morelos’ change in role and also Rangers' decreasing dependence on the Colombian to progress the ball in this manner.

While Rangers’ average possession share in Europe only rose 2% in 20/21 compared to the year previous, they were arguably the second strongest team in their Europa League group last season, compared to facing three sides the year before who were favoured to dominate in Porto, Young Boys and Feyenoord.

Despite a drop off across the board in Morelos’ progressive runs, they remain a great option for Rangers to bypass the opposition press. It allows them to be unpredictable in their build up play. Opposition sides know if they press Rangers high and leave space in behind, they risk Morelos isolating a defender one-on-one, as was the case when Nir Bitton was shown a straight red card for hauling down Morelos after a progressive run from a Tavernier ball in Rangers’ 1-0 Old Firm win in January.

Playing with two finishers

Morelos’ evolution into more of a deep-lying forward at Rangers has been facilitated by the arrival of Kemar Roofe. While Roofe doesn’t always line up as a nine and normally starts from the right of a three, in possession he often takes up the position of a forward and not a 10.

His tactical flexibility is a huge benefit and allows Gerrard to play two ‘finishers’ against top opposition, as shown by Roofe’s strike at home against Benfica last season. This is a threat Rangers simply didn’t possess before, when Morelos would often line up with Kent and another wide player in Rangers’ front three. As noted, Morelos was contributing far more to build up play in 19/20 than in 18/19, the difference is that Rangers last season had the quality and depth to compliment and take advantage of these attributes.

As shown in the earlier example against Hibs, Roofe’s positioning allows Morelos to drop deep, create overloads and link the play while Rangers retain an offensive threat. The two players would have played together more last season if not for Morelos’ stop-start first half of the campaign and Roofe’s injury setbacks.

The below strike, the opener against Ross County in a 4-0 win last season, is a perfect example of how both can work in tandem to stretch a defence and break a low block.

Ryan Kent, in possession, is playing as a 10 while Roofe and Morelos occupy County’s three central defenders. Notice how Roofe is not situated on the right of a front three but instead as part of a front two.

Kent finds Morelos who drags Alex Iacovitti out of position, unlike in the previous example against Hibs, leaving room to exploit towards the left of the home defence.

Morelos plays a previously discussed backwards pass to Davis who slides in Tavernier with an inch-perfect ball, before Roofe converts at the near post. The area of the goal Iacovitti would be expected to protect is vacant because of Morelos’ movement.

The Colombian wouldn’t be credited with any involvement in this scenario, but statistics cannot measure the quality and importance of his movement that creates the space necessary to score.

As all Rangers supporters will know through the begrudging experience of sitting through our pre-Covid league form which included that infamous 1-0 defeat to Hamilton, low blocks are difficult to break down.

Space must be created through intelligent movement and interchanging, as demonstrated above. Having another player in the staring 11 that can slot into Rangers’ well-structured 4-3-3 defensive block without the ball and be a constant goal threat in the box when Rangers have the ball is a huge plus for Gerrard.

In summation, if Alfredo Morelos is to leave Rangers this term he will be a huge loss, there is no escaping that fact. He has consistently been a big game player for Rangers and is now rid of the two sticks used to beat him with previously, having won a trophy and scored in two Old Firm matches.

But, as demonstrated, his evolution to a more rounded player has coincided with Rangers’ development to become a more rounded team, who are less reliant on the Colombian’s individualism to break teams down and boast far greater goalscoring options throughout their side.

If Morelos stays this summer, Rangers will be a better team for it. If he and Roofe both remain fit and available throughout the season they could form an excellent partnership, accompanied by Kent, as seen in the 4-1 victory over Celtic towards the end of last season. If he goes, Rangers are in a far better place for life after Morelos than this time last year.