“Remains a problem” – summer signing in trouble…

If Saturday’s win over Livi taught us one thing, it was the worrying status of Kyle Lafferty. Fans have been regularly asking us here on the site why he wasn’t playing, and his big chance at the weekend more than alluded to part of the reason.

Regulars will know we have a lot of time for The Bold Kyle – we were absolutely delighted by his signing and his status as the best SPL striker outwith the Old Firm (and maybe even including) was not in doubt during his peak Hearts days.

He was also very decent for us first time round too, despite then-assistant Ally McCoist admitting we’d been a bit unfair on him by deploying him as a winger rather than his natural striker position – his preference is most definitely central.

But despite a few readers mocking our (sadly justified) criticism of his displays by suggesting his impact was clear (they actually said that) it’s become more evident over time that whatever has stopped Lafferty from being at his best remains a problem and his performance at the weekend was mediocre at best and poor at worst.

We hate saying all this because he’s one of us and no one could ever accuse the lad of not wanting the best for Rangers (admitted he’s happy to not play as long as we win) or of not putting in effort when he does.

His heart, on and off the pitch, when it comes to Rangers, is definitely in the right place. So in no way is this article being published lightly – but the hard reality is, so far, Kyle Lafferty hasn’t produced since he came back at all.

He’s got a few goals, yes, but there does seem to be a reason, more than just Morelos’ form, as to why Lafferty is in and out (mostly out) of the side.

That said, Morelos’ impact at the weekend rather highlighted just what difference he can offer over the Northern Irishman right now, and we discussed earlier about picking your best players when you can.

Perhaps the system isn’t suiting Lafferty, perhaps he needs a foil up front, but then he’s actually struggled for his country too for two years (hasn’t scored since netting v Azerbaijan in 2016) so maybe there’s more than the system.

Whatever is going on with Kyle Lafferty, and we know the boy has a lot of off-pitch issues right now, we hope he gets the help he needs to overcome them and we start to see the best of him on the pitch.

We want the Kyle Lafferty we know, and we’re sure he does too.