The last thing Walter Smith needs at this moment in time is to lose the services of one of the most important players at the club -- and the man who bags the majority of his team’s goals.

If you asked the Gers boss the one man he wouldn’t want to be without then it would be Boyd, as his contribution where it matters is so important to the team.

He makes the difference in so many matches by bagging crucial goals, and Smith will have to pray that Rangers don’t lose their lead at the top due to this massive setback.

Teams can usually deal with losing certain players at various stages of the season.

But there isn’t a manager in the country who wouldn’t be concerned about losing the services of the man who puts the ball in the back of the net with the regularity that Boyd does.

You can sometimes deal with losing a defender. For example, Madjid Bougherra is probably the best player at Rangers and he was always going to be missed this month as he performs for Algeria at the African Nations Cup.

But young Danny Wilson has come in and plugged the gap well. And it has been the same when the likes of Kevin Thomson and DaMarcus Beasley have been out injured recently.

Guys can come in and cover for those players and the team can normally cope.

However, it’s a different story entirely when it comes to your leading goalscorer being sidelined at a crucial period of the season.

Putting the ball in the back of the net is the hardest thing to do -- and Boyd is the best in the country at doing exactly that.

His goals will be a big miss in the coming weeks. And it means someone else will have to step up to the plate on that front until Boyd returns.

What makes the timing of Boyd’s operation even worse is the fact Kenny Miller is suspended for Saturday’s trip to New Douglas Park to face Hamilton Accies again, this time in the league.

Rangers will be without their two main strikers and they might struggle without the pair of them leading the line.

The good news, however, is that Nacho Novo is fit again and he should go straight into the starting line-up, while John Fleck may well add another option after his recent bout of chicken-pox.

I’d imagine Kyle Lafferty will also play in attack but he seems to have lost all his confidence --and for me it really is time the big man got his act together.

He has been very, very poor for the last few weeks, but he has been at the Ibrox club long enough now to understand what it is all about.

He has been here for a season-and-a-half now and it is high time he started to justify the £3.75million fee paid to Burnley.

Yes, he is just 22, and Smith was paying for his future potential as much as his ability when he won the race to secure his signature. But Lafferty will have no excuses not to perform.

You find out a lot about players when they are up against it, and despite doing a fair bit of talking in the press, Lafferty has to answer where it matters most --on the pitch.

Now is his time to shine as Boyd will be out of the picture for the next six weeks and people must step up to the plate.

Boyd’s injury also highlights the problems Rangers might face if he was to leave the club during this month’s transfer window.

What it means in terms of his long-term future, only time will tell. Will Middlesbrough -- or others -- still want to sign him if he won’t be available immediately?

If the teams who are chasing his signature want him long-term, I don’t think the injury situation would put them off.

But it would be great news if Boyd is coming around to the opinion he would like to stay at Rangers. It would provide the club with a massive boost as the fans are desperate for him to stay.

I think he has been offered a good deal if the £18,000 a week figure being mentioned is accurate. That would see him nearly double his current wage.

Yes, it is a fraction of what he could earn if he decided to move to a Coca-Cola Championship or Barclays Premier League club.

But I genuinely think Boyd is a home bird who would be reluctant to uproot his family and move down to England.

He has not been one of the top earners at Rangers and he feels, quite rightly, that his efforts merit a pay rise.

The problem until now has been, given the money difficulties at Rangers, that the club would like many of their top players to accept a cut in salary.

But Rangers could only ever offer a guy like Boyd more money to stay and, while it is not as much as he could earn if he moved on to pastures new, it should be enough for him to agree to put pen to paper.

I think the bank, too, must realise that without Boyd, Rangers’ chances of retaining the SPL and getting into the Champions League are greatly reduced and are happy to loosen the purse strings for this one.

However, just now it will be his absence on the pitch that will occupy people’s minds -- Rangers will do really well to get through this period without him still at the top of the SPL.

 

Parting of ways was on the cards

It was always going to be a matter of time before Jim Jefferies left Kilmarnock.

The announcement he had left the Rugby Park club by mutual consent came as no surprise as it has been on the cards for quite some time.

All I can say is I’m delighted for Jim and his assistant, Billy Brown, that they have managed to get out of the club in light of what has been reported to have been going on there recently.

Claims that the chairman, Michael Johnston, tried to go behind the manager’s back to talk to striker Kevin Kyle about tactics was the final nail in the coffin and it’s a sad state of affairs when that is the case.

Kilmarnock might just realise how good a job he was doing there now that he has gone.

But I don’t expect big Jim to be out of work for too long.

Indeed, I’m sure both Dundee United and Motherwell will be extremely interested to discover he is available and that they won’t need to pay any compensation if he is their target.

 

Only 900 fans watch game

Just 900 fans turned up to watch Madjid Bougherra’s Algeria crash 3-0 in their African Cup of Nations opener against Malawi.

And, following the terror attack last Friday that left three of the Togo party dead, it comes as no surprise questions are being asked over the decision to hold the tournament in Angola.

Rangers defender Bougherra played at right-back and had an off-day -- although it remains to be seen if the Algerians can improve on that performance.

Despite the needless loss of life, the tournament had to go ahead ... to cancel it would have sent out the wrong message ahead of the World Cup Finals.

 

Get a grip

Like many football fans at the moment, I am not impressed with games being called off just because the surrounding areas are deemed unsafe by the authorities.

Do they postpone pop concerts or shut down supermarkets because of the snow? No, they don’t.

If conditions inside a stadium are safe then matches should certainly go ahead.

Kris Boyd and Kenny Miller have been in potent form for the Light Blues recently