DEREK JOHNSTONE Ibrox is no place for plotters who work their ticket

IF A manager or a player doesn’t want to be at Rangers then they shouldn’t be at Rangers. It is as simple as that.

The club confirmed on Friday night that Mark Warburton, David Weir and Frank McParland were no longer at Ibrox and Dave King’s statement on Saturday gave the supporters more details about the chain of events.

I was disappointed that Mark and David didn’t go in and see Stewart Robertson and sort it out man to man. Why do you send an agent?

If their representative was trying to broker a deal for them to go to another club, then Rangers had no choice here.

If you are Rangers, you say to them ‘so, you don’t want to be here and you want to get out? That’s fine’. If they want to leave, then good luck to them.

The board may have been looking to make a change anyway, but it wasn’t them that instigated this over the last week. This was instigated by Mark and David.

If they don’t want to be at Rangers, then they are no use to Rangers. The board take a fair bit of stick at times but the decision was 100 per cent correct here. If they want to leave Rangers, then you let them go.

The directors gave Mark a fair bit of money in the summer to allow him to strengthen the squad so that they could compete in the Premiership this season.

It was always going to be tough to challenge for the league, but they wanted to get as close as they could.

So when the manager meets the board a couple of weeks ago and Rangers are more than 20 points behind Celtic, it was only natural that questions would be asked.

Rangers invested in players, so why are they so far behind and not clear in second?

There was obviously a bit of friction there. Managers don’t like being questioned, especially from chairmen of clubs. If the board are unhappy with the way things are going, they are quite right to say that to the manager. If the manager doesn’t like that, then tough.

That is what Rangers is all about. Second is not good enough here. If you are going to be second, you have to be closer to Celtic, not almost 30 points adrift at this stage of the season.

The decision was made and I think most supporters will agree with it. Now the board have another big call to make in the coming days and weeks.

There is still a lot to play for this season, but we need to have one eye on next term and the new manager who will come in.

In an ideal world, you would get the preferred candidate in as quickly as you can. But it might not be possible to get that person on board midway through a season.

It might be the board have to appoint an interim manager to see us through the next couple of months. If that is the case, you are looking at a tried and trusted boss.

If that is Alex McLeish with Alex Rae alongside him, great. They are two Rangers men and they will certainly have an impact on the players.

They care about the club and would certainly do their best between now and the end of the season if they are invited to take the helm.

Some managers might not fancy taking the job on a short-term basis. But if the board can’t get their long-term candidate then that is the road they will have to go down.

Rangers have to start thinking big time. If you look across the city, you can see the difference that spending the money and getting a quality manager can make.

Rangers need an experienced manager, someone that knows the game, someone that is ambitious and someone that is a personality. The board have to get this one right.