Rumour Mill-Old Firm Laffs

Rangers are set to make a £4m move for Burnley striker Kyle Lafferty in the Summer according to the Mirror and other papers today

Rangers gaffer Walter Smith sent his assistant, Ally McCoist to watch the youngster play for Northern Ireland this week fuelling the speculation.

It is understood, Smith will offer £4 million plus squad man Alan Gow at the end of the season if the Clarets are not promoted.

This was also rumoured in the January transfer window along with Celtic's £3 million cash bid plus Derek Riordan.

Kyle Lafferty though for the moment at least remains a Clarets player, but if the Clarets fail to reach the Premier League this season, it is going to be increasingly difficult for Burnley to hold onto him.

Owen Coyle is quoted in the Daily Mail saying the following:

'Kyle has everything to go to the very top in the game and he would have made a massive impression at Celtic if that deal had been concluded.

'He is 6ft 4in, he can run like the wind and he can go left or right to get past people. Even though he is not yet 21, he has an international pedigree with Northern Ireland.

'People say we are asking a high price and the difficulty is putting the value on potential. But a lot of clubs are interested in Kyle.'

The Mail also state that Burnley boss Owen Coyle has told the Old Firm that Kyle Lafferty is worth a £4million summer gamble.

It seems that the club are preparing to lose the striker in the Summer with Flood recently telling the Lancashire Telegraph:

'There will be a time when he wants to move on. That's natural for him to do that.

'But ultimately, if we as a club are in the Premier League it will be difficult for him not to want to stay.

'The easier option would be to sell him and bring Riordan in because a lot of people regard that as reasonable business. But we think he can do really well for us.'

Coyle added: 'I'm excited about working with Kyle, but it can be out of your hands. If someone came in and offered £5million, you couldn't turn that down. It would be foolish.

'As it is, I mentioned to Brendan and the chairman that it was my belief that we should turn the Celtic offer down.'

Of course, if we do get promotion, it will be interesting to see if we can keep hold of Kyle Lafferty but offers in excess of £4 million plus a player are going to be difficult to resist and many fans I suspect would accept losing the player under those circumstances. With that sort of money plus a player, we could mount a very good challenge and build the squad no matter what division we were in next season.




Vital F1 Prediction League - Join now for Monaco