Boyd or Bust for Rangers?

It seems the most bizarre piece of logic since George Bush, against all evidence, felt the need to plunge huge amounts of money into abstinence-promoting contraception programmes. But as soon as Kris Boyd has upped his game, (I note he has started doing all the things that many moons ago, I said on this blog that he had to do to make himself a better player, such as tracking back, holding the ball up etc) Rangers have apparently decided to flog him. And the going rate for the SPL's most potent striker by a distance - it's what, a goal a game? That's just unbelievable, even if Dame Edna Everage could score against Caley's defence - is sufficiently low that an English second tier team looked like they were going to sign him, until it turned out that doubling Boyd's wages is not enough to convince him to live in Brummy.

Boyd, by all accounts, is a Rangers fan, keen to stay at the club despite the lack of faith in his ability that Wattie Smith has shown in the past. So it's not as if he's attempting to force a move. So what does it say when Rangers are attempting to sell their top striker and (possibly excepting Pedro Mendes) potentially most important player?

In today's Times, Graham Spiers (who never did eat his hat after Caley stayed up in 04-05) interestingly notes that Rangers' bank is none other than HBOS, who in these help-ma-boab times may well be putting pressure on the Huns to reduce their debt. This is despite the fact that Rangers have already got rid of Carlos Cuellar and Alan Hutton for fantastic prices.

What does this mean for Scottish football? Well, for a start, the best players in the league are now clearly fair game for the English Championship, let alone the Premier League. Celtic's financial situation is not all that phenomenal either - while the likes of Scott Brown are happy to dismiss moves south at the moment, would this be the case if Celtic were trailing in the league? And what if Celtic continue to have the financial upper edge (helped by annual Champs League qualifications) and we end up with a repeat of the nineties, only with the green-and-white half of Glasgow overwhelmingly dominant? And then the boredom of winning every year leads them to bugger off (a la Stilian Petrov and, for a while, Barry Ferguson)?

And if wages down south continue to increase, there is potential for the Old Firm to become even more dependent on other SPL teams for talent, as their wages would be cheaper. We have already seen Mark Brown, Gary Caldwell, Mark Wilson, Scott Brown, Paul Hartley, Barry Robson, Chris Killen and Scott McDonald at Celtic, and Graeme Smith, Kirk Broadfoot, Steven Whittaker, Kevin Thomson, Boyd, Steven Naismith and Nacho Novo at Rangers. These guys in a lot of cases were not as good as those they replaced, so if this trend continues not only do the Old Firm's standards drop, but so do the standards of other SPL teams. And it's not very good already.

I have no idea what the solution to this is. It's clearly a complex problem, with an obvious solution - more cash. But where on earth is the cash going to come from? Your guess is as good as mine. But the SPL is not the greatest product as it is - the days of Laudrup and Larsson are long gone - so if it becomes less attractive how do you sell it?

I'm also fairly sure that nine of the SPL's twelve clubs (Celtic, ICT and Hearts the exceptions) are with HBOS. This can't be good.

Anyway, going back to Rangers, if Boyd leaves, lets see just how good Kyle Lafferty's strike rate is in comparison.

L.