Alfredo Morelos won't be sold late in the transfer window, insists Steven Gerrard

Colombian forward Morelos sat out the 5-0 win over Oxford United in a pre-season friendly in Glasgow yesterday due to a minor groin strain.

However, Gerrard stressed the striker will travel to Gibraltar this afternoon ahead of the Europa League qualifier against St Joseph’s tomorrow.

Elsewhere, he confirmed that Allan McGregor, who also missed the Oxford match, had been rested and would be available.

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Morelos, who scored 30 goals in all competitions last season, has been the subject of more intense speculation about his future this summer.

But the Rangers manager revealed that no club had made contact about the South American and emphasised the forward would only leave if a bid that matches their valuation is received long before the transfer window closes at the end of August.

“Alfredo’s had an injury and he’s recovering from it,” said Gerrard. “He trained today on his own, did really well with the physio and he’ll be in the squad to travel on Tuesday. The injury is a groin problem, a niggle, really small.

“For me, I’ve got a quality player on a long contract who gets paid very well and makes my squad a lot stronger because he’s a prolific goal scorer. Nothing has changed, in my view, for the player. But I can’t control the speculation.

“As a club, we haven’t got a decision to make, because a bid hasn’t come. Will one come? Possibly. Possibly. But that’s me guessing and trying to predict the future, which is silly, because I don’t know what’s going to happen.

“I think there are loads of strikers around Europe who will score goals. Does anyone want Alfredo Morelos? I don’t know. But, if they do, they’d best bring a really, really big offer.”

Gerrard added: “It won’t happen late. A million per cent, it won’t happen late, that’s for sure. So if someone wants to spend a lot of money on a centre forward and they want to take my centre forward, they’d have to come early. They’d have to. Because it won’t happen late.

“If he did end up going, he would be impossible to replace with only days or weeks remaining in the window. So we don’t want him to go. We don’t want to sell him.

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“But I know that every player has a price. And I’m not going to sit here and say that he’s not going out the door. Because, if a bid lands that the board like and they want to accept, it’s a completely different conversation. But that hasn’t happened. There hasn’t been one single bid.

“I have trust and confidence in the board and chairman. The chairman is on the same page as me. We don’t have to sell, we don’t want to sell. But we understand that, if a crazy bid lands on the table, you have to treat it seriously.

“At the moment, there hasn’t been one phone call for Alfredo so far. If teams are planning on waiting until the last week of the window, they’re wasting their time.”

Asked if Morelos would be happy to remain at Rangers, Gerrard said: “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him that question. He gives me the impression he wants to be here because he trains really well.

“The niggle has been a bit of a setback for him. He went on in the bounce game we played against Mansfield in Portugal. Thankfully it was only a little small issue. He trained really strong this morning and will be in the squad on Tuesday."

Asked if the artificial surface in the Victoria Stadium would be an issue for Morelos, his manager added: “He’s cleared everything with the physio today, he’ll train with the team tomorrow and will be ready for selection on Tuesday.”

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Gerrard confirmed that Jon Flanagan will be out for three weeks due to a hernia while Scott Arfield, who has just returned from playing for Canada in the Gold Cup, and Jamie Murphy, who has resumed training, would not be involved against St Joseph’s.

He admitted he was still keen to take Ryan Kent, the Liverpool winger who did well on loan at Ibrox last season, back to Rangers. “The situation is in Liverpool’s hands at the moment,” he said. “I would be repeating myself if I said that we want him. I’ve made that pretty clear. The only way we’ll have a conversation is if Liverpool phone and say he’s available to go on loan.”

Gerrard added: “I think there will be hopefully a couple more coming in over the next few weeks. We’ll have to wait and see.

“Teams have only just started back, a lot of them, especially the ones not involved in European qualifiers. So we’ll see how things progress, but, yeah, over the coming weeks hopefully there will be a few more additions. It’s difficult to say whether it will be one, two or three.”