Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson, head coach John Spencer and general manager Gavin Wilkinson have taken on a major gamble by signing Scottish striker

this week.

After last season's failed

experiment, the trio is taking another shot at finding a consistent goal-scoring forward to lead Portland to the playoffs. Boyd is being paid a lot more than Cooper was -- Paulson called Boyd "a seven-figure kind of guy" -- so there's little question Boyd is the highest-paid Timbers player.

Management has placed its credibility on the line and cannot afford another expensive mistake. The group claims to have learned from the Cooper blunder and say they got the right player this time. But will Boyd's performance match the stratospheric expectations in Portland?

The 28-year-old's statistics impress. He has scored 176 goals in 335 games since 2000, including 164 goals in 296 appearances in the Scottish Premier League (SPL), most in league history. Boyd won the SPL goal-scoring title four times and scored at least 20 goals in a season three times, including 32 during the 2005-06 season. Boyd has competed in Champions League games and played for the Scottish National Team.

The 6-foot-1, 180-pounder certainly looks like what the Timbers need. He is a big, physical player who will spend most of his time in or near the 18-yard box. Based on

his past, Boyd doesn't seem interested in playing out wide like Cooper did too often for Spencer and Wilkinson's liking. And while Boyd doesn't look as athletic or mobile as Cooper, he has proven deadly accurate inside the box.

Spencer and Wilkinson have said Boyd is a forward who can maintain possession of the ball, play off speedy teammates making runs forward and get them the ball in attacking positions. The Timbers hope Boyd will become the focus of opposing defenses, creating more space for others to exploit. One issue is Boyd -- who doesn't seem to consistently create his own shot -- will need teammates to get him the ball with solid crosses, an area where the Timbers struggled in 2011.

Paulson, Spencer and Wilkinson are confident that Boyd will rise to the challenge. They expressed the same confidence in Cooper a year ago, but when his play didn't meet expectations observers gave the expansion franchise a pass. Now, with a year of MLS experience, the Timbers' personnel decisions and results will draw greater scrutiny.

One criticism of Cooper was that he seemed unnerved by the expectations of the Timbers' rabid fans. No one in the organization seems worried that Boyd -- who competed in many derbies between Rangers and Celtic, one of the most intense and vitriolic rivalries in sports -- will crumble in the face of expectations.

Cooper didn't score enough to satisfy management, but he did bring an admirable work ethic to the team, one reason the Timbers signed him. From what has been reported about Boyd, his work ethic has been questioned at times. Now Boyd will join the Timbers with work to do physically after nearly two seasons of having played little. How much time he will require to regain peak fitness could foreshadow what kind of season he will produce.

Boyd scored an amazing number of goals in the SPL -- critics question the competitiveness and talent level beyond Rangers and Celtic -- but since then? Not much, though supporters will trot out his six goals in 10 games with Nottingham Forest in 2011 as proof he remains a threat.

Perhaps all Boyd needs to do is score at least nine goals -- one more than Cooper in 2011 -- and Portland fans will be happy. But if he is being paid a seven-figure salary, upper management should be disappointed if Boyd fails to score at least 10 goals.

Like Cooper in 2011, Boyd is trying to resurrect his career after two years adrift in Europe. Boyd left Turkish team Eskisehirspor in a contract dispute before the Timbers snatched him away from Houston amid reports that a number of teams -- Everton, Celtic, Rangers and MLS teams -- inquired about Boyd's services.

On paper, signing Boyd looks promising, but what if he struggles? Many foreign players, not accustomed to playing in MLS -- time zone and climate changes -- and living in the United States, are slow to adjust in their first season. If Boyd doesn't hit the turf scoring, his reputation for hanging around the box and playing little defense might be viewed as laziness, a word associated with him in the past.

If Boyd doesn't score many goals -- say, fewer than eight -- and the Timbers reach the playoffs, his total won't be an issue. But if Boyd falters and the Timbers don't reach the playoffs there will be a lot of questions for Paulson, Spencer and Wilkinson to answer.

The Timbers' brain trust have rolled the dice on Boyd's success. It's a gamble that is anything but a sure bet.

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