Former Rangers striker Steven Naismith has revealed he couldn't cope with the pressure at Ibrox after returning from a devastating knee injury.
The Scotland international suffered a cruciate ligament injury in April 2008 and was out for close to a year.
He returned for the final few months of the 2008-09 season but the Hearts star admits he struggled with the expectation on his shoulders.
Naismith told Everton's official website : "In the games I was rubbish, I had no confidence and felt I didn’t want the ball.
"If I had a chance, I’d miss the target.
“I’d sit at night and think, [exasperated voice] ‘I am doing nothing different’.
“On top of that, at a club like Rangers, the fans expect you to win every game.
“If you take a bad touch or miss a chance, they’re on you.
"And there’s three or four players for every position, if I’m not doing it, someone will take my place.
“All that was building around me.
“I was really struggling.
“I never told anybody, just took it all on myself.
“I preferred for nobody to know and just dealt with it.
“I got to that summer and thought, [exasperated again] ‘Where am I going with my career, here?’
“I reverted back to how I was as a kid… thought, ‘I am going to be fitter than everyone else when I come back’.
“I outran everyone in pre-season.
“I stood out to the manager, scored goals in the friendlies, then started that season how I was playing before the injury."
Naismith grew up supporting Rangers, but angered fans when he left in 2012 to join Everton following the Ibrox club's financial collapse.
But the striker insists his decision was motivated by new owner Charles Green and the feeling all was not right.
He explained: "Our squad was full of Rangers fans who just wanted the best for the club.
"We took 70 per cent wage cuts to try to save everybody’s jobs.
"We were coming up with solutions to a lot of the problems and getting them legally checked but they’d [new owners] say no every time.
“There was a lot of bad blood, fans thinking we’d left to make a quick buck.
“That wasn’t the case.
“There will always be people saying, ‘If he was a real Rangers fan, he wouldn’t have left’.
“But I was 25, was I going to spend the next four years in Scotland’s lower divisions playing against part-time teams?
“We’d had an insight into the guys who came into the club, I thought they were in it for themselves.
“We thought they would freeze us out, force us to leave and take the transfer money for themselves.
“That was the end for me at Rangers.
“You have to think about what is best for your family, whatever your own feelings as a fan.
“I had no intention of ever leaving Rangers when I signed there and had no desire to go to England.
“The whole experience was really draining.
“It was sickening for all of us.
“The players chatted more about what was happening than the football.
“I am not glad I went through it but I definitely learned a lot from it.
“In some respects, it forced my hand to move south.
“And sitting here now that is something I am delighted I did."
