Kyle Lafferty wants Rangers return – but Aberdeen’s Niall McGinn is better option

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Kyle Lafferty’s Northern Ireland strike partner, Niall McGinn, is leaving Aberdeen and Rangers should consider making a surprise swoop.

If he could turn back the clock, Kyle Lafferty never would have left Rangers, the Daily Record reports. Understandably so, considering his career hasn’t exactly taken off after he jumped ship in 2012 when financial disaster struck and Rangers were condemned to the bottom tier of Scottish football.

While a bonafide Northern Ireland legend, inspiring their qualification for Euro 2016 after a 30 year tournament drought, Lafferty has bounced around five different clubs in three different countries after leaving Ibrox.

And the 29-year-old has not started a single Championship game this season at current employers Norwich City.

No wonder Lafferty believes he may have made the wrong choice following Steven Davis and Steven Naismith out of the exit door.

“It was a difficult time and if I had the opportunity again I would stay and fight for the club and try to help them as much as possible,” he told the Daily Record.

However, while an emotional return in the summer, when his contract expires, may be tempting for a Rangers side desperately in need of attacking reinforcements, Lafferty’s recent record at club level suggests they should listen to their head rather than their heart.

He’s scored 16 league goals in the last five years.

Instead, it would make far more sense for Rangers to make a move for his international strike partner and the player who sealed Northern Ireland’s first tournament victory in 34 years in the 2-0 win against Ukraine in Lyon last summer.

Like Lafferty, Nial McGinn is out of contract this summer and Aberdeen boss Derek McInnes recently admitted that he could leave Pittodrie, as reported by the BBC. Unlike Lafferty, however, McGinn remains as sharp as ever at club level.

He’s now hit double figures for successive seasons and has 14 in all competitions for Aberdeen in 2016/17 – more than any Rangers player. Furthermore, plucking him on a free would be a major coup, considering the damage it would do to the side one place above Rangers in the table.

Food for thought, then, for the Ibrox giants.