Warburton admits winter break may cause more problems than it solves
MARK WARBURTON admits he will not enjoy handling the horns of a dilemma over how best to work the winter shutdown for Rangers.
Like all Ladbrokes Premiership teams, Rangers will break up after the Hogmanay fixtures and will not be back competitively until the William Hill Scottish Cup fourth round on January 21.
The Ibrox boss, an advocate of an extended summer rest period, is caught between giving his players adequate rest and ensuring they are in peak shape to compete on return.
Warburton said: ‘Don’t take this as a sarcastic response, but what do you do for three weeks? We were asking that same question before the Scottish Cup Final against Hibs.
‘It caused us a big problem before the Cup Final and I don’t know what we’re going to do with it. Three weeks is very difficult but we’ll allow them five days off.
‘We’ll try to find somewhere decent to travel without too much expense, hopefully. We’ll also need to find a game to play.
‘You could face a highflying Championship team in the Scottish Cup on January 21 who’ve played four games during that period.
‘And we’d be fresh from a winter break, hunting around trying to find a fixture.
‘I’m sure a lot of topflight teams could go out in that round when you have a winter break because they won’t be prepared for the games. Championship teams will have been playing.
‘I, personally, don’t see the logic of this coming in the first few weeks of January, especially when we have so very little time off in the summer.’