Don’t take fun out of football

Warburton is backing Oduwa to stick with the tricks

FOR a nation that’s been only too happy to eulogise about the public humiliations meted out by Slim Jim Baxter and wee Jinky Johnstone for half a century, mock indignation whenever someone attempts to turn on the style has more than a whiff of hypocrisy about it.

Nathan Oduwa’s failed attempt to bamboozle Alloa defender Colin Hamilton with a two- footed rainbow flick on Sunday may have been more Copacabana than Clackmannanshire, but t he Rangers’ debutant, surely, ought to have been commended for trying.

Yet, rather depressingly, even before the 19-year- old Londoner had boarded the team bus, he found himself being rebuked, with Hamilton issuing a thinly veiled warning about the consequences if — to paraphrase him — Oduwa continues to extract the urine in the Championship. Rangers manager Mark Warburton has had three months to get accustomed to our couthy ways, yet even he was taken aback at such a negative reaction to something the game here desperately needs more of.

‘If a foreign player did that, what would t he r eaction be?’ the Ibrox boss wondered aloud. ‘ If Lionel Messi did that, everyone would be on their feet.

‘Nathan is a young kid, he loves his football and plays with a smile on his face. I’ve been told there has not been a lot of smiles around here for a few years. Well, he’s always smiling.

‘There’s no lack of respect, it’s just a young player playing his football with a purpose in front of a passionate away support. I can’t believe some of the comments that have been made.’

Danny Lennon is assuredly not one of those Warburton was referring to. To his credit, the Alloa manager, whose liking for a passing game brought him many plaudits at St Mirren, was fulsome in his praise for Oduwa’s ingenuity.

The Rangers manager has also been in football long enough to appreciate that Hamilton’s remarks perhaps emanated from a sense of disappointment at how the game went as opposed to him being diametrically opposed to seeing any degree of skill in our game.

‘ We are i n an entertainment industry, fans pay good money to go and be entertained and I thought Danny made some very sensible comments,’ Warburton added.

‘There was no lack of respect from one player to another, there was no show-boating. He has bundles of natural talent and he was trying to use that. He’s been with the Spurs first team for a reason and that is why we brought him to the club.

‘No one likes being beaten, do they? If Rafa Nadal hits a wondrous backhand pass, the guy on the other side of the net doesn’t like it. Footballers are competitive animals and don’t want to lose, but sometimes you put your hands up and say: “Woo, that’s not bad”.

‘For a 19-year-old to do what he did, to go on and change the game, to go on and be clever, be brave and take risks was great. He tracked back and did his defensive job. I thought for a young guy he was really impressive.’ In that sense, the 29 minutes Oduwa was afforded were a microcosm of Rangers under Warburton to date. After the humiliation of failing to win promotion from the second tier last term, the Ibrox faithful would have gladly accepted seeing a winning team back on the park. For that to happen while the entertainment value has soared has had them in raptures.

Some 17 goals have been scored in just four games and notably not a single header among th e m. A slavish devotion to passing through teams does not come without risks but, i n Warburton’s view, the rewards hugely outweigh those.

And he cites goalkeeper Wes Foderingham as a case in point.

‘ I’m really delighted with Wes. I can’t speak highly enough of his contribution,’ Warburton (below) said.

‘I see people criticising him but he’s been asked to play out from the back and get us started.

‘The stats I looked at were that Wes played out (on the ground) 87 per cent of the time on Sunday and we got started in their half 77 per cent of the time from that. ‘These are big numbers. It lets us keep the ball in their half.

‘If our keeper launches the ball and it’s a 50/50 battle, that’s not for us. We’ve got to be clever and look for ways of getting out.’ The Ibrox manager’s philosophy runs throughout his side. For a support more accustomed to a direct style of play in the past few years, the sight of flying wingers augmenting attacks and midfielders picking at the locks with intricate passing is refreshing.

If there is a danger that there might be no Plan B when mor e taxing challenges arrive, then that’s a risk Warburton is

willing to take. He hopes to draft in one more player before the window closes but, rest assured, that won’t be a classic target man.

‘No. I understand why you might say that,’ he replied.

‘If you’ve got a Peter Crouch-style target man and you’ve got world class delivery, then I understand perfectly. We haven’t got that but we’ve got some very talented attacking players.

‘Teams playing against Rangers will look to defend the penalty box, so what’s the point in us throwing the ball in? We have to be clever, keep shifting the ball and find an opening.’

So far, at least, Warburton has been everything Rangers f ans hoped he might be. His approval of Oduwa will be seen as a further indication that he gets the importance of offering fair-weather fans an incentive to come along as opposed to a reason to stay away.

‘I’ve said before I want to send the fans home happy — if we do that, we’ll be in a good place come May,’ he added. ‘It’s not cheap following your team, so make it worthwhile.’

Season tickets for 2015/16 start f rom £ 263 f or adults and are available from www.rangers.co.uk, calling 0871 702 1972 or by visiting the Rangers Ticket Centre.