Rangers signing Toral says boss Warburton was key to his move
● Playing style and his Brentford spell under Ibrox manager made loan move ideal for Arsenal midfielder
Rangers on-loan recruit Jon Toral is looking to Mark Warburton to get his career back on track after agreeing a temporary deal that will see the Arsenal midfielder make Ibrox his football home for the rest of this season.
After a successful stint on loan at Birmingham City last season, the 21-year-old midfielder endured an unproductive six months in his Spanish homeland with Granada, where he made only six firstteam appearances. Toral believes hooking up with Warburton for a second time in three years can allow him to salvage progress from this campaign and provide the impetus to be pushing for a place in Arsene Wenger’s senior squad next summer.
The Barcelona youth spent the 2014-15 season on loan at Brentford with Warburton in charge as the then newly-promoted Championship club reached the play-offs, and the football ethos that the Englishman promotes made both Toral and Wenger receptive to him signing on at Ibrox.
“The manager was a massive influence in me coming here,” Toral said. “I know from Brentford how good a coach he is. The boss at Arsenal was very keen for me to join Rangers so that was a big help, too. They have a great connection with Mark. They respect and admire him and they like the way he plays football. It will help me settle here because I know him so well.”
The ties between Rangers and Arsenal that Toral could use as pointers when deciding to come north were various. They extended to Gideon Zelalem, who Warburton had on loan at Ibrox last year, and former Rangers and Arsenal midfielder Mikel Arteta, who left the London club last summer to become Manchester City joint assistant under Pep Guardiola.
“Gideon came here last year and things went well for him. I hope that’s the same for me,” Toral said. “Mark and Arsenal have a good relationship. They like Mark’s style of play and the way he works, so that made this decision an easy one for me. Of course, I also spoke at length with Mikel Arteta. He told me that if I had the chance to come here then I simply had to take it. He loved his time here and I know how big a legend he was.”
With his Arsenal contract up at the end of next season, Toral knows that, realistically, his loan spell with Rangers will be the last such move he can use to attempt to make the breakthrough at a club he joined from Barcelona aged 16.
“It’s my fourth loan club in three years and sometimes it can be difficult But it’s a new challenge and I hope this proves a successful move for me. I know this is a massive club with a massive fanbase. I can’t wait for the first home game to experience that atmosphere that everyone talks about.”
Jon Toral and Hector Bellerin left Barcelona for Arsenal in May 2011, the Nou Camp club fumed at having had two major young talents effectively pinched from them. It seemed then that the two 16-year-old boys from Catalonia would grow up and spread their wings at the elite level of English football shoulder to shoulder.
Five years on, only one of them can boast that career trajectory. The fact that Toral sat before us at Ibrox yesterday, full of anticipation at his fourth loan spell in three years, meant it wasn’t him. Toral, indeed, has yet to play a game in Enland’s top-flight. He did play half a dozen times in La Liga for Granada this season – but it was the fact that total was so meagre that has resulted in him looking for better at Rangers. In contrast, Bellerin is only five games away from 100 appearances in Arsenal colours, and has long been Arsene Wenger’s first pick for the right-back slot.
Toral was always going to find the going tough as a playmaking midfielder. These seem to fall out of the cupboards at Arsenal. Adept defenders, such as Bellerin, are altogether rarer. Toral takes only pride and inspiration from the meteoric rise of his “best friend”.
“He is one of the best right backs in the Premiership in my opinion so I couldn’t be happier for him,” the Rangers loanee said. “I would love one day to play alongside him for Arsenal. Playing well for Rangers can help me prove to the boss at Arsenal that I am ready for the first team. You have to be mentally strong, it’s not easy changing clubs. But I am sure it will benefit me in the long run.”
Despite the fact he was players’ player and fans’ player of the year after impressing on loan at Birmingham City last season, he didn’t see an Arsenal benefit. Birmingham came after he’d helped then Brentford manager Mark Warburton push that modest club up to giddy heights in the Championship in 2014-15, having only just been promoted.
“I enjoyed working with Mark at Brentford, he did a great job there. We knew how good that team was, we had a lot of young, hungry players. Not a lot was expected of us but we reached the play-off semi-finals which was a great achievement,” said Toral.
“I know how much faith the manager has in me. He believes I will play in the Premiership one day. That gives me so much confidence and makes me want to get started right away. The manager has told me what he expects from me. This will be a challenge for me. There’s not many clubs in the world where you play in front of 50,000 fans every week. But that’s a massive part of why I am here. I want to test myself and better myself. I think I am going to enjoy it .”
Toral is awaiting the international clearance that is required for him to feature in Rangers’ friendly in Leipzig on Sunday night. The game he needs to make his presence felt in, though, comes as early as next Saturday. That’s when the club’s only chance this season to end six years without a major trophy making its way to Ibrox goes on the line with the Scottish Cup tie that sees Warburton’s side enterwhen tain Motherwell. In terms of his hopes for the season, Toral doesn’t offer up anything daft about a title Celtic have in the bag having already established a 19-point lead.
“It will be difficult to catch Celtic so we want to finish as high as we can in the league. The cup is obviously massive for us and we want to win that too, I want to help my teammates win that.
“I believe I can get my career back on track at Rangers because ultimately I want to go back to Arsenal and play for the first team there. That, obviously, is my long-term ambition.” Helping Rangers back on the track they want to be in the short term, might be as arduous as achieving his longterm aim.
“Playing well for Rangers can help me prove to the boss at Arsenal that I am ready for the first team. You have to be mentally strong, it’s not easy changing clubs” “There’s not many clubs in the world where you play in front of 50,000 fans every week. But that’s a massive part of why I amhere”