Aidan Smith: When it comes to the crunch, Boyd's a monster in the box

Published on Saturday 14 February 2009 18:37

KRIS BOYD has a wonderfully non-expressive face which has served him well in football. It was probably indicating pleasure when his previous club Kilmarnock were voted pie champs of Scotland. It definitely signalled joy when he secured his transfer to Ibrox, home of the loyalburger.

His smiles resemble scowls and vice versa. Maybe the Rangers dressing-room prankster who repeatedly hid Boyd's Monster Munch thought he would eventually get the joke; inside, though, the striker was raging every time. It's a little pinched O, the Boyd countenance, and if you've never seen it before, it suggests the wearer utilises all of the emotions from A to B and back again. But Boyd can work the O to display bafflement at Paul Le Guen's rejection of Monster Munch as a key component of a top-class sportsman's diet, frustration with George Burley – and despair when he muffed that chance in the last Old Firm derby.

As you may have guessed, I'm a serious student of Boyd, or if I may be so bold, Boydy. It's all too easy to say he's lazy or can't forage alone or never scores against the big teams. For sure, he's a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma hidden in an empty Monster Munch packet, blowing in a snell Govan wind. But when he's in the mood he doesn't strike the ball with an ogre's paw, in tribute to the classic shape of his favourite corn-based snack. His aim is true, the shot one of brutal nonchalance, and a connection with the sweet-spot is as inevitable as a Paisley Road West logjam 15 minutes before time-up.

Goal of the season? Definitely that Boydy volley with the left against Partick Thistle in the Co-operative Insurance Cup. He hit it with the stunning power you normally only glimpse when an offside flag's been raised and the striker's nice and relaxed because his blood temperature has cooled so he decides to show off. This one counted, though, and in celebration Boyd made the tiniest of adjustments to his non-expression so it read: "See me? I can score like that in my sleep." The Sleep Research Society ran some tests and discovered he'd been dozing the entire game. They were even able to make out the subject of his dream: the much-missed spaghetti sauce-flavoured Monster Munch, which ceased production in 1995.

Ah, you say, that was Thistle. It'll be a different story at Celtic Park today. It probably will. Boyd probably won't start. He might get on later, but one-on-one with Artur Boric again, in a joust of body mass index, Boyd would probably lose.

That's not his preferred kind of goal opportunity. His attitude to strikers who run about daft outside the box is: "What's the point, by the way?" In fact, he has a serious problem with strikers who run, full stop. Boyd prefers the role of the full stop. He thinks a fixed point, seven yards out, is the goal-hanger's one true home. And when you see the way he works this tiny space to his advantage, who can argue with the Boydy logic?

His positional sense is impeccable. Allied to that, he's world-class at the sly dunt, the crafty tug of a defender's shirt, any form of distraction including shadow puppetry and conjuring tricks with scarves to buy him a vital split-second and avoid having to shift his feet. And how he scores so many headers without appearing to jump is one of the great SPL mysteries.

Boyd loves a crowded box, the bigger the melee the better. Film of Ibrox goalmouth action and all the jostling and pointing can resemble CCTV footage shot outside a dodgy nightclub. Hardened detectives used to examining the latter could easily apply their skills to the former. They'd freeze some frames and the inspector would point at Boydy and say: "That him, that's the troublemaker." Another tec might quibble: "But boss, he's hardly moved. When you speeded up the tape, he was actually in slow-motion." But of course the inspector would be right.

An elusive, intriguing fellow, of that there's no doubt, but it's obvious who his role models are. Any child will tell you that the scariest monsters are the ones you cannot see. The puppets used in the Monster Munch ads of the 1970s went missing recently, sparking a nationwide hunt. They should have searched the Ibrox locker marked K. (Boydy) Boyd.