Alex Rae has performed a sharp u-turn to declare Odsonne Edouard as his Player of the Year- three months after claiming Alfredo Morelos as Scotland’s finest.
While Morelos has been grabbing front page headlines and suspensions from UEFA, the SFA and his own club Edouard has got on with consistently knocking the goals in as Celtic close in on a treble.
In a feature in today’s Sun Rae and Mark Wilson were asked to nominate their Player, Manager and Young Player of the Year (Season).
Wilson gave Celtic a clean sweep with Edouard, Neil Lennon and Jeremie Frimpong picking up his awards. Rae went along with those names with the exception of Aberdeen’s Lewis Ferguson picking up the Young Player of the Year award.
Listeners to Radio Clyde and Radio Scotland plus viewers of BT Sport will have heard Rae sing the praises of Morelos for most of the season.
On December 3 in the build up to the League Cup Final the Glasgow Times reported:
Asked for his number one player in Scotland by Daily Record, Rae said: “I’ve gone for Alfredo Morelos. When you talk about influence in a team, when you’ve got 24 goals in 20 starts it’s phenomenal, remarkable.
“But then you touch on what else he brings to the table and the influence he has. The Rangers team feel as if they’re better with him leading the line.
“He’s obviously a goal scorer, brings people into play, his link-up play has improved dramatically. Then you’ve got his individual goals. He rolls people, smashes them in from acute angles.”
In today’s Sun Rae backtracks with:
I’m going with Edouard partly because of his level of consistency throughout the year. In terms of the goals, they speak for themselves.
But in terms of the way Celtic play, the fact his link-up is so good he can play as an out-and-out number nine and with a striker equally as good That’s the mark of a good player.
December turned out to be something of a turning point in Morelos’ season, in the League Cup Final Fraser Forster put up the shutters highlighted by a second half penalty save.
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Later on in the month he picked up red cards against Motherwell and Celtic, in 2020 he has managed one goal as his club crashed out of the Scottish Cup and lost 11 points on Celtic in the race for the SPFL title.