Timbers make yet another move

Kris Boyd, the all-time leading scorer in the Scottish Premier League, agreed to sign with the Portland Timbers, the club announced Monday.

Boyd, 28, had been mulling over a contract offer from the Houston Dynamo, but chose to sign with Portland and coach John Spencer, also a Scottish national, and said he would be in the Rose City in time for the team's season-opening game with Philadelphia, March 12.

"Kris is a proven goal-scorer at the highest levels of the game and we expect that to continue here in Portland," Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said Monday.

In seasons with both Kilmarnock and Rangers, Boyd scored 164 goals before moving to Middlesborough, where he languished and eventually left the club in 2010. He signed with a top-flight Turkish club in late summer, but left in December and returned to the UK to determine his future. Houston offered him a contract earlier in January.

Boyd, who ended last season on loan to Nottingham Forest, received interest from English Premier League clubs and was also rumored to be ready for a return to Rangers. He has 18 caps with the Scottish national team.

He now needs a visa and worker's permit to play in the U.S.

The league listed Boyd as one of Portland's designated players.

Boyd's signing also increases the focus on the Timbers' December signing of striker Jose Adolfo Valencia, who is a designated player but has yet to appear active at a practice while the club assesses his physical well-being.

He is the league's first designated player from Scotland.