WALTER Smith has insisted he does not want to sell Kris Boyd and believes the striker can still secure the regular first-team football he craves with Rangers next season.
Boyd's match-winning double in the Scottish Cup final against Queen of the South took his tally for the campaign to 25 goals in 24 starting appearances, a remarkable statistic for a player who has spent most of it on the bench.
The former Kilmarn
ock player has expressed the view he may have to consider his position at the club, with his former manager Alex McLeish understood to be interested in taking him to Birmingham City.
Smith, however, believes Boyd has simply been a victim of his preferred 4-5-1 formation this season and that he could yet establish himself as a key figure in the more expansive and attack-minded Rangers team he hopes to be able to field in 2008-09.
"The stronger you get as a team, then the more productive Kris Boyd will be," said Smith. "When you start out with a new team, you are never quite sure of its overall strength, and he is not the ideal striker if you are only going to play with one. He needs a partner to play with and needs the team to be strong round about him to get the best from him. That's not always an easy combination.
"It's just the way he is. He's an excellent goalscorer. He obviously has a lot of aspects of his play which are not at the same level as his goalscoring and that's just something I think he will always have. He has helped us win two cups this season with four goals in the two finals and he is one of those players who is always liable to get you a goal.
"I've not heard anything about him leaving so far. I'm quite happy to have him, so there's no problem in that respect. He's like every other player, he will want to play more regularly than he has done this season. He has suffered the disappointment of it and I know that. But it's just the way that I felt was the best way for Rangers to play.
"He finished up our top goalscorer, so I don't see a great problem, but I know from his point of view he wants to play more often than he has done this season. Maybe next season he will. Sometimes it is to do with the overall strength of the team as much as anything else.
"While everyone on the outside can look at the individual aspect of it, a manager has always got to look at the team aspect of it. We had a lot of aspects of our team we had to take care with this season. Overall, I think we managed to handle that well."
Smith revealed that Boyd has made his unhappiness known to him but the manager remains content with the player's attitude both on and off the pitch. "He has complained to me about not playing, which I'm pleased about," said Smith. "He is quite right to want to play and he can hold up his record and say 'I'll get you goals'.
"The stronger the team I can make, then the more often Kris will play. He is down in weight from when we came in 18 months ago and he works hard enough at his game. I've got absolutely no complaints about him. He's a good professional and does his work."
The full article contains 604 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
