Sky pundit Kris Boyd has laid into Rangers striker Kyle Lafferty this weekend, believing he’s been a massively disruptive influence in Michael O’Neill’s Northern Ireland squad.
The former Gers forward has made big assumptions about what’s going on behind the scenes in the national team’s dressing room, pinning plenty of blame, rather unfairly, on Lafferty.
Speaking on Sky’s SPFL Matters programme this week, Boyd said:
This can’t be the first time something’s happened. There’s obviously been things that have gone on before that Michael O’Neill has maybe overlooked.
This time he’s had enough and it’s a big problem for Lafferty. He can’t play this weekend against Hamilton because he’s banned, he can’t play in the Scottish Cup semi because he’s ineligible. He’s missing a lot of football.
While it’s true Lafferty’s situation has been entirely preventable from the player’s perspective, it’s a bit of a leap to suggest he is creating havoc for Michael O’Neill.
Boyd has made a number of controversial allusions on air so far this season and should probably stick to things we know for sure.
Hopefully Lafferty can put all the recent negative headlines behind him and start to do the business for Gerrard’s side.
By all accounts he continues to train well and he’ll be desperate now to shut up the pundits who have bad mouthed him over the last couple of weeks.
That could be a massive benefit to Rangers.