Glasgow Rangers hit the jackpot when they brought Alfredo Morelos to Ibrox in the summer of 2017.
The Rangers striker went on to rack up an impressive 124 goals and 57 assists in 269 appearances in all competitions for the Gers before his exit in 2023.
They signed a host of other number nines over the years in an attempt to replace the Colombia international, who now plays for Nacional in his home country of Colombia, and they may have thought that they struck gold with the signing of Antonio Colak.
The Croatian marksman enjoyed a terrific start to life at Ibrox and was even described as a better centre-forward than Morelos, who was still at the club at the time.
Colak hailed as better than Morelos
In January 2023, Aberdeen captain Anthony Stewart claimed that Colak is a “better striker” than Morelos, based on his all-round game, having played against both of them in the Scottish Premiership.
The Light Blues had signed the Croatia international from PAOK for a reported fee of £1.8m the previous summer and he enjoyed a fantastic start to his career in Scotland.
By the time of Stewart’s comment, Colak had racked up 11 goals and three assists in 15 appearances in the Premiership and three goals in four Champions League qualifiers.
Whereas, Morelos did not score more than 12 goals in an entire Premiership campaign in any of his last four seasons with the club, which illustrates how impressive that first half of the season from the Croatian ace was.
Colak's decline at Rangers
Unfortunately, that early-season form did not continue and the former PAOK man endured a frustrating second half of the campaign under Michael Beale.
After Stewart’s comments, Colak only made ten more appearances in the Premiership for the Hoops and scored three goals, two of which came in the same game against Hibernian, whilst failing to provide an assist.
Beale then decided to cash in on the 31-year-old centre-forward ahead of the 2023/24 campaign and Parma swooped in to agree a £2.5m fee with the club.
Appearances
22
Goals
3
Assists
0
Big chances created
0
Duel success rate
26%
As you can see in the table above, Colak’s struggles in front of goal continued last season as he only managed three goals in 22 Serie B matches for Parma.
The Italian side then opted to cash in on him after one year, selling him to Spezia in the same league, and he has only played eight minutes so far this term.
These statistics suggest that Rangers were right to sell Colak after his second-half-of-the-season woes at Ibrox, as he is yet to recapture his goalscoring form over 12 months on from his departure.
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It is a shame, however, that a player the club may have thought was going to be better than Morelos, after his sensational start to life with the Gers, ended up being sold six months after Stewart’s comments about his quality.