Former St Johnstone manager and Northern Ireland international, Steve Lomas, has delivered an assessment on Kyle Lafferty, as quoted by the Daily Record.
The 31-year-old striker signed on a two-year deal from Hearts during the early part of the season.
He started promisingly but has since largely failed to impress.
In 19 SPL appearances, he has only scored four goals and can’t get a proper run in the side.
However, that didn’t stop him starting consecutive Euro 2020 Qualifiers for Northern Ireland last week.
“He goes back to his club in better shape than he left and that can only be a good thing”, said Lomas, as quoted by
the Record.
“Those games would have helped him. The second half against Estonia in the first game was better because you have to get the ball into Kyle. The first goal we scored in that match was really a testimony to the strengths he has.”
However, Lomas doesn’t expect Lafferty to feature from the start against Celtic, on Sunday.
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“People talk about Kyle and say he’s a big daftie but he’s not stupid”, he continued.
“He knows Morelos is doing well and it will be hard to displace him. It’s just a case of being ready and keeping his head down.”
Verdict
Lomas has hardly delivered the most nuanced punditry of all time here, but he is right to an extent.
Lafferty simply isn’t good enough to displace Morelos and the player himself almost certainly knows that.
However, the ex-St Johnstone boss went on to be quite effusive in his praise for Lafferty’s recent performances for Northern Ireland.
He did grab an assist against Estonia and worked hard vs Belarus. Yet, in general, he regularly failed to hold the ball up and missed a couple of gilt-edged opportunities which were almost costly.
Lack of game time is clearly a factor here, but there’s no doubt the £900k-rated striker has been disappointing this season.
