WHEN Barrie McKay is on song, he is one of Rangers’ most prized assets. When he is off key, he could be a luxury they can’t afford.

McKay is at a crossroads in his career this summer. It may be the end of the road in Glasgow for the 22-year-old.

The winger is now in the final twelve months of his Gers deal and his future is uncertain.

After turning down an extension during Mark Warburton’s reign, he didn’t do enough during the first weeks on Pedro Caixinha’s watch to merit a big money offer.

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Ted McMinn has watched McKay hit the heights and flatter to deceive over the last couple of campaigns and the former Rangers and Derby wide man reckons the writing may be on the wall for the winger.

“I have seen bits and bobs about Andy Halliday and McKay training with the youth team,” he told SportTimes. “When that starts happening, you haven’t really got much of a future with the club.

“It is a big step backwards and the manager is more or less saying you don’t have a future here. Is McKay being sent there because he hasn’t signed a contract? Or because he is going elsewhere?

“The manager has come in and he has got his opinions on the squad and he has said before he wanted more from Barrie.

“He is a winger and like any winger he can be on fire or he can be a dud. I was a winger and I had more bad days than good days.

“The style of football that I played, you faced your full-back and you run at him. With Barrie, when he is on form, he can walk by people like they are not there.

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“When he is off it, he will turn back, go back the way and he doesn’t have the confidence to take a man on and cause teams problems.

“I hope he has got something to offer but he is very hot and cold. We have got the boy [Tom] Ince at Derby and he is a luxury.

“Can Rangers afford a luxury? Probably not. If Barrie has been told to go and train with the youth team, that tells you a lot.”

It is five years since McKay burst onto the scene as he helped Rangers to the Third Division title but his time in Light Blue has been mixed since then.

Loan moves to Morton and Raith Rovers prepared him for a crack at the Championship and he made the most of his chance to impress under Warburton as he shone in the second tier and won a Scotland call-up.

He showed flashes of his natural ability and undoubted potential last term but a campaign that yielded 49 appearances and nine goals ended with Caixinha demanding more.

A move to England will be on the cards if his Rangers career comes to an end and McMinn wouldn’t be surprised to see him at the City Ground.

He said: “There has been talk about his future for a while and towards the end of last season there was talk about him maybe going to Forest.

“With Warburton going there, you think would he go back to Ibrox and take some of the players he had there? There will be clubs down in England watching him.

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“If he goes to Forest, I hope they get relegated! They just survived last year and I was one of the people hoping they would go down because of the carry on with Warburton and how he became Forest manager.

“I was hoping they would go down but people in Derby didn’t because it is their big fixture down here. I am surprised he hasn’t signed players from Rangers but it is only June and nobody really makes moves at this time.”

If McKay does convince Caixinha that he deserves another shot at glory with Rangers this season, he will face stiff competition for a starting spot at Ibrox.

Portuguese pair Dalcio and Daniel Candeias are amongst eight summer signings that the Light Blues have made in preparation for the new campaign.

Having bolstered his ranks considerably in the last month, Caixinha will now have to clear the decks in the coming weeks as he prepares for his first full term at the helm.

McMinn said: “Results are the only thing that matter to him.

“There weren’t a lot of good performances towards the end of the season and the fans won’t stand for that this year.

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“If you are going to replace players, you need to replace them with better players.

“There are a lot of foreign players that have come in and hopefully they can play. But when it comes to an Old Firm game, and that is no disrespect to the likes of Aberdeen, they are games that until you play in them you don’t realise how big they are.

“Watching the games at the end of the season, the fans were saying those players weren’t good enough to wear the shirt.

“The manager has had a look at them and at least he is honest enough to say ‘you are not in my plans’. But these lads will still have contracts and that is a big thing.

“There are players who could sit there and say ‘I will stay with the Reserves’. You can sit there and wait until your contract runs out and then get another clubs.”