WHEN Alfredo Morelos pickpocketed Ajax goalkeeper Remko Pasveer on Tuesday night it looked to be the start of an unlikely Rangers comeback.

The Colombian showed great tenacity to close down the veteran Dutch stopper but with an open goal at his mercy, he preceded to fire wide of the post, missing the target completely.

It was a sitter in the Peter van Vossen bracket but a moment which encapsulated his Rangers career as a whole.

The man he surpassed as the club’s record European goalscorer, Ally McCoist, was at a loss to explain the miss: “It’s absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “He’s got to score. He absolutely has to score.

“You know what he can do, actually? He can just put his foot on the ball and Alex Lowry’s got a tap-in.

“Anyway, that kind of sums up the campaign. He must score and he didn’t.”

Morelos' Ibrox journey has been a rollercoaster ride of emotion but as he enters the final six months of his contract he looks like a man who has mentally checked out.

Should he depart in the summer for nothing there is no denying he has given Rangers excellent service that exceeds the £1m they paid HJK Helsinki back in 2017.

Of course, there have been times when the club could’ve cashed in on the mercurial star but he has remained at Ibrox where, in the main, he has been idolised.

However, since injuring his thigh at Dens Park back in March the rampaging buffalo has become a shadow of his former self.

His petulant dismissal at Easter Road proved costly as Rangers surrendered two vital points and it proved to be the final straw for Giovanni van Bronckhorst who subsequently dropped him from the squad that would triumph over PSV in Eindhoven to reach the Champions League group stage for the first time in 12 years.

At the time, van Bronckhorst said: "I think he has to show me he wants to play for Rangers. I know he wants to play, but to play for Rangers you need to have a certain level mentally and physically and at the moment I think he is not ready to play.”

It was a bold move given what was at stake but it proved to be the correct call after Antonio Colak netted the winner that sealed Rangers’ passage to the promised land.

He has, of course, since reintegrated back into the squad but it’s evidently clear he is nowhere near the levels we all know he is capable of.

He is a player who has had to adjust to the fact there is a new sheriff in town in the form of Colak who is quickly becoming a fans’ favourite. As someone who has been that figure for a number of years now, it will no doubt have an effect on his ego.

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He has scored three goals in the Premiership this season, all of which have come within the last 15 minutes when he has come on as a substitute.

Afforded the opportunity to lead the line for Rangers in Europe he's barely made an impact. While given a thankless task of spearheading the attack at Anfield and in Naples - he would also miss a glaring opportunity to reduce the deficit in the latter game following a sublime Ridvan Yilmaz pass.

His display against Napoli was lambasted by Italian footballing legend Sebastino Nela who berated the 26-year-old and deemed him physically out of shape. "I watched Napoli play against Rangers the other night,” he said. “Rangers played with a centre forward called Morelos who looked like a fattened Luis Muriel. It was like watching Muriel with an extra 18 kilogrammes.”

Unpleasant critiques of his physicality is something that is often levelled at Morelos and on current form it’s hard to argue he looks somewhat off-peak condition. He isn’t the slimline, goal-hungry player we witnessed bullying some of the meanest defences in Europe in 2019-20. He looks cumbersome and someone severely lacking in confidence and sharpness.

His miss against Ajax was yet another example of a faded talent who looks far removed from the Alfredo Morelos the Rangers fans fell so head over heels in love with.

If this is, as you'd now have to expect, to be his final six months at Ibrox he has work to do in repairing his reputation and avoiding a tangible legacy of success becoming tarnished beyond repair.

Of all his misdemeanours, such a turn of events would surely be the most saddening.