Darryl Broadfoot on Monday: Kris Boyd has only himself to blame. The realisation should have dawned by now that maybe it is he, and not everyone else, who is responsible for his faltering career.

Kris Boyd has only himself to blame. The realisation should have dawned by now that maybe it is he, and not everyone else, who is responsible for his faltering career.

The Rangers striker has become the second player to relinquish his international status under George Burley, after Lee McCulloch. The reason? The manager didn't fancy him when it mattered most. It all sounds a tad familiar, not to mention tiresome. This, after all, is the same player who agitated for the departure of Paul Le Guen when the Frenchman took a dim view of Boyd's leisurely attitude to his profession; the same player who was often victim of Alex McLeish's international pragmatism, and the same player who cannot command a start ahead of Jean-Claude Darcheville, hardly one of Walter Smith's great European imports, at Rangers.

Will Boyd dare to tell Smith he has no intention of playing for Rangers again after being dropped from the entire squad for the last Old Firm derby?

Boyd, for over two years now, has been content to wallow in a persecution complex when he should be dedicating himself to addressing his fitness debit and technical failings. At 25, it may already be too late to re-educate the man Smith wearily describes as a "conundrum" at nearly every pre-match press conference.

There is no bigger crime in the game than taking a natural talent for granted. He is a prodigious goalscorer - 150 career goals at club level and seven in 15 international appearances - but that alone is insufficient to survive in the modern game. Take Robbie Fowler. Liverpool's best finisher since Ian Rush became an irrelevance well before his prime. He disregarded his responsibilities to his team-mates and his club and became consumed by a playboy lifestyle.

Boyd is in danger of blowing a career that should have had him at least threaten Ally McCoist's record of 251 league goals for Rangers. These words are not written lightly. I have known Boyd since the days of interviewing him in his old red BMW outside the Kilmarnock training ground. He has a more engaging personality than his public persona suggests and thoroughly deserved his move. Something in Boyd's psyche has changed, and not for the better, since his move up the M77.

Rather than proving to himself he could fulfil his destiny, he adopted a surly demeanour and a tabloid-friendly tendency to "prove his doubters wrong". Those doubters to whom he frequently refers in The Sun are not faceless fans. They are all respected coaches who have taken the same view of Boyd; namely, that his goalscoring prowess alone is not enough to compensate for his chronic deficiencies.

Take the weekend. There is no doubt Boyd would have converted that chance with his eyes closed and standing on his good leg. It is not Burley's fault for not putting him there, but Boyd's for not offering enough to merit inclusion ahead of two competitive international debutants in Chris Iwelumo and Steven Fletcher.

The manager now faces mutiny. He has not helped himself by answering a variety of probing questions with the same robotic stock answers. On Saturday, his unconvincing post-match analysis contained only one concise explanation: the reason behind Boyd's banishment to the bench when Scotland were chasing a winner.

"I thought Chris would give them problems in the air and I wanted movement around him, which Steven has," Burley said succinctly.

Boyd, in comparison, is a 6ft striker with no spring off his heels. At club level, he is often resigned to pleading for a foul than challenging the centre-back in an aerial joust. He would have had no chance against Brede Hangeland. His lack of pace is a problem magnified at the highest level but, without knowing the specifics of the Murray Park sprint drills, it can only be observed that he looks slower than at any other stage of his career.

No player has ever become sharper sitting on the bench, which is Boyd's biggest problem.

Smith refused to sanction his sale to Cardiff City in the summer, not that the player had any intention of going there anyway. If the Rangers manager cannot get him to change his ways, Boyd's career might already have peaked. It is a sad state of affairs.

His decision to withdraw his availability for the rest of Burley's era is an act of folly. Comparisons have already been drawn with David Weir's decision to announce his international retirement under Berti Vogts. There is a world of difference between Weir being publicly humiliated by Vogts after a 2-2 draw with the Faroe Islands and Burley taking the same attitude to Boyd's limitations that his club manager takes most weeks.

Scotland, as was proved in their toil against an unimpressive Norway team, are not so well off that they can accommodate an 89-minute passenger. Boyd has a decision to make. He can undertake a personal reinvention or risk life in the Coca-Cola Championship, where physical demands are a prerequisite for success. Boyd owes it to himself to choose the right course of action. So many managers can't all be wrong.