Is this guy any good?

His record seems pretty poor to me, especially for a guy playing lower league football, but Celtic and Rangers seem to both be interested in signing him for a fee of £3million+, which seems a hell of a lot.

Can anyone shed any light on what he's like?

Having admittedly only seen him on TV a few times he seems exactly the sort of player who won't help either sustain their European ambitions beyond September

He's rubbish. A very, very average Championship frontman. But then, Lee Naylor was a very, very average Championship left back.

Naylor had a good first five months in Scotland and then promptly died on his arse. He will be leaving in the next few weeks, and not a minute too soon. He is easily the worst outfield player we have apart from Chris Killen.

Duncan will be here soon to tell us that Lafferty is a class act, but all you need to know about him is that he has scored the staggering total of nine goals in his last 87 games for Burnley in the Championship. He's a Huns fan, they're welcome to him.

He's tall, and quite fast for a tall player.

These qualities sadly don't compensate for the fact that he's not very good at either kicking or heading a ball.

Well he maybe shite in some people eyes but he has one what many English lads have failed to do and that is score in Sweden.

We're after him too and have offered £2.5million & Stephen Elliot (who we paid over a million for a year ago).

Can't say I'm overly excited by the prospect of signing him but McCarthy's generally been good in transfer market so we'll see.

In Lafftery's defence, he plays left-wing most of the time for Burnley.

If McCarthy's so good in the transfer market, why are so many of his signings on the transfer list?

Based on that limited scoring record, Wolves or Ipswich would seem more realistic than a starring role in the Champions' League. Smith and Strachan have obviously spotted something the rest of us have missed.

He has shown the occasional glimpse in international matches, but then you're comparing with the great James Quinn (four friendly goals in 50 games, now running a scaffolding business in Coventry).

So he's off to Rangers for £3million plus Alan Gow plus a percentage of any sell-on fee. Good news, I feel.

If recent reports are accurate, Rangers have now spent most or all of their pre-season transfer budget on Kenny Miller, Andrius Velicka and Kyle Lafferty - not a trio that will strike fear into the hearts of Celtic.

He could be this season's Scott Brown.

QUOTE:
If McCarthy's so good in the transfer market, why are so many of his signings on the transfer list?

Because he's prepared to admit his mistakes far more than other managers (albeit only implicitly by transfer listing them).

The signings of Kightly, Dave Edwards, Ebanks-Blake, Keogh, Breen, Foley, Henry, Elokobi and McNamara more than make up for those who haven't worked out. Indeed, we'll probably get what we paid for those on the transfer list and only Eastwood was an unmitigated disaster (the others were cheap enough to have been worth a punt or did a job when they first came in).

I don't think many people realise quite what an extraordinary job McCarthy's done at Wolves. Because we finished 7th the season before he took over and only increased a place the following season it looked like he'd not improved us much. But considering we lost something like 15 key squad members and had a squad of about 19 (including 5 or 6 youth team players) when he took over he's done a remarkable job. And some of the football we played in the 06/07 season was absolutely sublime- beautifully fluent attacking stuff. This year was a let down by comparison, but he's still got my backing.

Can't say I'm too upset about Lafferty going to 'gers, though. Alan Gow was a player we were interested in when he was at Falkirk, I think we might have had a lucky escape there too- although he'll no doubt net one for Burnley at Molineux this season.

And Kevin Kilbane's son never did get that golden tricycle...

Hofzinser wrote:

QUOTE:
So he's off to Rangers for £3million plus Alan Gow plus a percentage of any sell-on fee. Good news, I feel.

If recent reports are accurate, Rangers have now spent most or all of their pre-season transfer budget on Kenny Miller, Andrius Velicka and Kyle Lafferty - not a trio that will strike fear into the hearts of Celtic.

They're close to finalising the purchase of Steve Davis as well. Davis is an okay player, but they already had him for the second half of last season, so it's not as if he is a new presence who will improve the team noticeably from what it was.

Velicka is good and will probably be the best of those four signings.

I'm very surprised Alan Gow was basically ignored by Smith all season (shades of John Sheridan at Nottingham Forest in the early 1990s). Something must have happened there.

I think its just a return of the culture that saw Miller go to Rangers from Hibs in the first place where they buy the best players from other teams just to weaken them.

Fifepride, at the risk of repeating myself from the Gareth Barry thread, Rangers do not have enough money to afford to buy a player for half a million pounds, pay him an annual wage of another several hundred thousand pounds, and then make him sit in the stands all season just so that Falkirk's midfield has a bit less attacking threat than it did before (before they buy a replacement, obviously).

The whole Gow thing has cost Rangers the guts of £1 million, in return for one starting appearance in the Scottish Cup, another start in the CIS Cup, and no goals. Rangers, like every other club in the world, buy players in order to make their own team stronger and better. Do you think Smith and Murray really view Falkirk as dangerous rivals who have to be undermined immediately in case they take second place?

Smith wouldn't use Gow even during the final three months of the season, when Rangers were playing a lot of games and picking up injuries and suspensions all over the shop. Given that Gow showed in the previous two seasons that he is a reasonably useful player in an SPL context, it seems pretty clear that they had some kind of falling-out which resulted in Gow being banished, rather than Smith just deciding to have the player on his mantlepiece like some sort of lank-haired ornament.

Hieronymus would know better than me but it seems more like Celtic/Rangers sign some players to stop the other one getting them (see Hibs ad infinitum, Steven Naismith etc) rather than seeing Hibs or Killie as immediate threats. Lafferty seems another of those but at that price I'd say Celtic have dodged a bullet.

As far as Lafferty goes Rangers best striker/goalscorer spent most of last season warming the bench. Even then Boyd seemed to be behind another sub in the eyes of Smith - whoever of Cousin, Nacho or Darcheville was keeping him company. Obviously Boyd wasn't chasing down full backs and defending from the front which is the primary job of a striker. Under Walter anyway.

Maybe Rangers are going to play a more direct style. If that's possible.