Rangers advance to the second round of Europa League Qualifying with style by rolling over St Joseph’s FC 6-0 at Ibrox.
Before the second leg of Rangers Europa League Qualifying match vs St Joseph’s had started the tie was all but decided after Rangers trounced the Gibraltar side 4-0 at the rock. With such a vast lead, Steven Garrard opted to leave a number of regulars on the bench and give run to some of the younger players but it didn’t matter as Rangers rolled to an even larger victory than in the first leg.
New arrival Joe Aribo got the scoring started early with a goal in just the 3rd minute of play, Morelos would make it 2-0 just before halftime with a header off of a brilliant touch by Connor Goldson for one of Rangers finest goals of the young season.
Heading into halftime Rangers were up 2-0 (6-0 on aggregate) but they didn’t slow up even a little bit, Morelos got a hat-trick with a penalty kick in the 57th minute (James Tavernier had the day off) and a brilliant finish off a low cross in the 66th minute. Then his replacement, James DeFoe, added a brace of his own with goals in the 77th and 86th minute. All in all, the Rangers strikers had five of the six goals scored, and they won the tie on aggregate 10-0.
Despite not scoring, new arrival Greg Docherty was highly impressive, with two assists on the night and he won the penalty that Morelos put away.
It is easy to get carried away with this sort of a victory and important to remember that St Joseph’s would likely struggle to survive in the Scottish Championship, but a 10-0 thrashing over two games is about as dominant a performance as you could hope for regardless of the competition. The depth that was shown in the second leg is a great sign for Rangers as depth was one of their main issues last season.
Alfredo Morelos’ big night put him over the 50-goal mark in a Rangers uniform, a nice milestone for him with the club even if he does end up moving on in the near future, he also took sole possession of top goal-scorer since the horror.
The victory puts Rangers through to the next round of qualifying where they will face Luxembourg side Progres who is a side that I’ve never heard of so it should be quite easy I’m sure. Yep. No worries at all.