Hearts pip Hibs to Lafferty
● Forward thrilled to join ‘massive’ club but admits that talks over lucrative contract were frustrating
Hearts have completed the signing of striker Kyle Lafferty, denying rivals Hibernian, who had hoped to snatch him away with a last-gasp intervention.
The Northern Irishman had been on the wishlists of both capital clubs and he had been expected to switch his attentions to the Championship winners if a mutually-agreeable conclusion to several days of negotiations in Gorgie did not materialise. But a deal was finally struck late yesterday afternoon.
The two-year contract is subject to the 29-year-old former Rangers forward passing a medical and the Tynecastle club are hoping that it is a case of good things coming to those who wait after they eventually wooed him with terms that will make him the highest paid player in Ian Cathro’s squad.
“It’s been a frustrating three or four days to be honest, whether we were going to get it over the line or not,” Lafferty told Heartstv, “but finally we have and I’m absolutely delighted to be back in Scotland to play my football and, most importantly, to play for a massive team like Hearts.”
The club had always been confident that they would land their man, who was a free agent after leaving Norwich City.
“From our first meeting there was a clear willingness and desire to make this deal happen on both sides,” said club chairwoman Ann Budge. “This is a real win-win for both parties and I am confident that Kyle will become a real fans’ favourite.”
The player, who has been handed the number nine shirt of the upcoming season, has experience of the Scottish top flight, having spent a colourful four seasons at Rangers, between 2008 and 2012, scoring 38 goals in 138 appearances, including the goal that clinched the SPL title for the Ibrox club in 2010.
After stints at Sion, Palermo and Birmingham City, he made only 12 appearances for Norwich in the Championship last term, netting just once. But his total game time amounted to less than a game and a half. That is something he is hoping to change at Hearts as he battles to regain his place in the Northern Ireland squad, with one eye on next summer’s World Cup.
“I just wanted to come somewhere where I can play football. I’ve got an important year ahead of me,” he said. His country’s second highest goalscorer ever, with 20 goals in 62 appearances, he was a member of the squad that reached the last 16 of the 2016 Euros.
“I’m hoping to make the World Cup with Northern Ireland, so it’s an important year and I’ve been told I’ll be the main focal point of the team, which in the past two or three years I’ve thrived on and I’ve produced the goods.
“Coming here, knowing how passionate the fans are about their club and their football... it’s important that I was coming to a place where I know I’d get along with the supporters.”
Meanwhile, Hearts have agreed a deal to release Nigeria left-back Juwon Oshaniwa who still has a year remaining on his Tynecastle contract.
Kyle Lafferty has arrived at Tynecastle keen to get his World Cup ambitions back on track. But while he is aware that the move provides him with the platform he needs to force his way back into the Northern Ireland side, those who know him say the club will benefit as well.
“He ticks so many boxes,” says David Weir, who played alongside the rangy striker during a successful spell at Rangers. “He has a bit of everything. He has physical presence, a good touch, he can run at defences, get in behind them and finish. He has always had those attributes but it was about putting them together. Hearts are getting him at a good age. He can be a big assist to them .”
At Rangers, his ability was often overshadowed by lapses in judgment which saw him in the headlines in 2009 when he feigned being headbutted by Charlie Mulgrew and was fined by his Ibrox manager Walter Smith and banned for two games by the SFA, for simulation. He was also banned for two weeks under Ally Mccoist following a training ground bust up but in between he did weigh in with vital titlesealing goals, earning a league winners’ medal in each of his first three seasons at the club.
Weir does not expect Hearts will have to deal with the kind of errors in judgment that dogged the 29-year-old in Glasgow and says the fact they are signing a older, more mature version is something that should prove beneficial to their own ambitions.
“When you are at Rangers you you are always in the spotlight and every transgression will be highlighted and he did have that side to his nature,” Weir said. “We all know the things that went on back then but he has been around the leagues and around the world and has played international football. He was a young lad back then and he will have learned what he can and can’t do.
“He will be a more mature person and player and he won’t look back. The future is more important to him now, especially if he wants to play for his country. I’m sure that will be a big part of his decision to move to Hearts because there is that potential for going to a World Cup if he can get back playing regularly.”
At Rangers that was not always the case. In competition with the likes of Nikica Jelavic, Kenny Miller, Kris Boyd, Nacho Novo and Steven Naismith for a place in the front line, Weir says the Northern Irishman was sometimes forced out. A winner and a big game competitor, that tested his mettle and sometimes proved problematic as he struggled to channel his frustrations in the right manner.
“The fact Hearts have made him the highest earner at the club would indicate that he will have a key role in the team and he will be able to get on a run and that will help him, so that shouldn’t be an issue and after you have been at a club like Rangers, where strikers are expected to score and the team is expected to win every week, he will not be fazed by playing at Hearts, where fans are also demanding,” Weir said. “He knows Scottish football and knows the league and that will help Hearts and should help him settle quickly and get off to a good start.”
John Robertson is acutely aware of the problems the Tynecastle club have had in luring prolific strikers to Gorgie or keeping hold of them in recent years but believes that Lafferty could be one of the missing pieces of the jigsaw.
With Isma Goncalves, new signing Cole Stockton and Rory Currie, his arrival offers manager Ian Cathro several attacking options.
“There is quite a bit of pedigree in that strikeforce,” said the new Inverness Caledonian Thistle manager, who is well-versed in what it takes to becoming a goalscoring legend at the capital club.
Hearts have set out their ambitions to add more silverware this season and Robertson says that Lafferty’s international targets could help bolster the bid for domestic honours. The Northern Ireland striker has scored three goals in this World Cup qualifying campaign but has struggled to stay at the forefront of international gaffer Michael O’neill’s plans.
“But because Michael lives in Edinburgh he regularly watches Hearts so Kyle will have plenty of opportunities to impress. The fact that Austin Macphee [the Hearts assistant manager] is also part of the Northern Ireland coaching set up can’t help either if he is putting in the performances and banging in goals.”