For much of the season Rangers have been chapping at the door without much success.
But there was a Hallowe’en reward at Fir Park as Steven Gerrard ’s team finally filled their buckets.
There were plenty of tricks and treats for the travelling Rangers faithful as Fashion Sakala announced himself with a sublime hat-trick.
James Tavernier, Glen Kamara and Kemar Roofe also pounced to hand the champions their biggest win of the campaign and a four-point lead at the top of the table.
Rangers haven’t looked like themselves this term but there was no disguising the quality of this performance.
Other than falling behind for the ninth time this season after Bevis Mugabi struck for Well, it was a flawless showing for Gerrard’s men.
Once they drew level with Tavernier’s strike, there was no stopping them and only the performance of Liam Kelly prevented a scarier final outcome for the hosts.
Graham Alexander’s team, who drop to sixth place, were already up against it when captain Stephen O’Donnell got himself sent-off for a second booking and a horror movie display ended up resembling a bloodbath by the time the final whistle blew.
A run of four straight games without a win was not ideal form for facing the league leaders but Well were looking to draw confidence from September’s Ibrox clash, where a Kaiyne Woolery goal earned them a 1-1 draw.
Woolery, however, was among three players to drop out of Alexander’s line up as Mugabi, Mark O’Hara and Jordan Roberts joined a line-up that threw away a two-goal lead against St Mirren in midweek.
Sakala was also Gers’ goal hero when the teams last met and he was again restored to Gerrard’s starting XI as the Light Blues boss opted to boost the experience levels of his with with the inclusion of 30-somethings Allan McGregor, Steven Davis and Scott Arfield.
Slow starts have become a worrying habit for Gerrard this term. He insisted this week it was a problem he was determined to fix after
Aberdeen became the eighth team this term to strike first against his team.
Well whatever remedies he is trying, they’ve yet to take effect as another self-inflicted blunder 13 minutes in left the champions trailing yet again.
A harmless ball up from the hosts would have been easy enough for either Tavernier or Goldson to deal with, so long as they did so promptly.
But when both froze momentarily, it was left to Goldson to head behind for the most needless of corners.
And it was some inevitability that Well pounced as Sondre Solholm met Sean Goss’ out-swinging delivery with a firm header.
McGregor scrambled down too his left to to make a decent save but by the time the keeper was back on his feet Mugabi had squeezed his strike past him at the near post.
Gers respond to their latest setback by pouring bodies forward. The trouble was Motherwell got just as many back behind the ball to clog up the penalty area.
Rangers were either going to need a sharper cutting edge or a bit of luck to get themselves level.
They got the latter two minutes from the break when an aimless, looping cross from Calvin Bassey dropped into Tavernier’s path.
There was nothing fortunate about the skipper’s finish as he drilled a brilliant volley home into the bottom corner.
And his cross two minutes later for Sakala was just as accurate.
Like they did against St Mirren last Sunday, Rangers turned the tide in the blink of the eye and found themselves in front at the interval, this time when Sakala ghosted in between Mugabi and Stephen O’Donnell to thud a fine header past Kelly.
Bit by bit, Rangers’ resilience has been returning of late. And now they were ahead, there was no stopping them and they moved two-up on 63 minutes.
Sakala’s shot clipped the heels of former Ibrox man Goss before
skipping past the wrong-footed Kelly at his near post.
O’Donnell had been skating on thin ice ever since he had tugged Sakala back nine minutes in and there was only so long the Scotland defender could keep himself out of trouble as waves of Gers attacks crashed down on the Fir Park defence.
But a late lunge on Bassey on 67 minutes spelled the end of O’Donnell’s afternoon as referee Nick Walsh reached for the red.
Rangers’ third goal had sent a trickle of home fans heading for the exits but it became a torrent as soon as Kamara rifled home number four with quarter of an hour left.
Sakala may have been obscuring Kelly’s eyeline as Kamara’s 25-yard strike crept in at the near post but by that stage the fight had gone out of the home ranks.
The Gers support weren’t going anywhere though and they were treated to two more goals as their side shook off the frustrations of a stuttering campaign.
First Davis lofted a sublime ball in behind the Motherwell defence for Sakala to steer past Kelly on the stretch and complete his treble on 85 minutes.
And the sixth came in stoppage time as Roofe snuck into at the back-post to get the final touch on Jack Simpson’s goal-bound header from a Tavernier corner.
