Warburton is winning over wanted men
Old Firm lure aids recruitment drive
WITH crowds in excess of 50,000, a state-of-the-art training complex, a genuine chance of winning trophies and the prospect of European football, you would think that the task of selling Rangers to prospective employees would be anything but arduous.
For Mark Warburton, however, the theory of recruiting players for the Ibrox club has proven to be easier than the reality.
Even if the Glasgow giants had not gone into financial meltdown four years ago — a story that even undiscovered Amazonian tribes may have got wind of — the trickle down of Premier League riches in England continues to thwart the best efforts of the Rangers manager to land players from lower divisions down south.
But if there’s something incongruous about a club of Rangers’ standing being blown out of the water by English clubs with a fraction of their support, Warburton takes considerable encouragement that, as of the past few weeks, he is now holding a couple more ace cards.
‘It is hard,’ he conceded. ‘It is much better now being in the Premiership and it is better after the Old Firm game.
‘The beauty of the 108.7million TV audience is that it gives Rangers a fantastic stage to show what they are about, the fans and the whole atmosphere.
‘So it did a world of good for Scottish football, but it helped us in terms of recruitment. This is what we are about and we want more. There are four of these (games) next season, minimum. We want more of that, so hopefully that really helps with recruitment.’
It’s not just the carrot of the Old Firm games that Warburton feels may prove significant in the weeks that lie ahead.
Three or four years ago, Rangers’ name was toxic. Sure, there were players happy enough to abandon the Scottish top flight to pull on the jersey but their motives were almost exclusively financial. Few agents of aspiring English players would have picked up the phone to a club then locking horns with East Stirling and Brechin City.
‘There is a generation of young players who grew up thinking of Rangers being in financial trouble and administration. That is how they thought of us,’ Warburton shrugged.
‘The hardest job we have got is getting people up here. Once we get in Glasgow and show them Auchenhowie and Ibrox — done.
‘We had a guy in last week. There you go, there is the Press, every single day and they get it straight away. The hard part is getting them to Glasgow, as bizarre as that might sound, because they have got this impression in their mind.
‘This season, it was the Championship and “I don’t want to play there”. Is the league good enough? If they have English Championship clubs calling for them on more money, then we have got a hard sell. When we get them here, you can sell it, absolutely.’
Little wonder Warburton made the hiring of Frank McParland, head of recruitment, his top priority. No matter the size of the club, the economic reality is that Rangers have to be shrewder and smarter than ever before.
As a former City trader, no one needs to tell Warburton that money doesn’t so much as talk as scream from the rooftops.
And as impressive as Rangers’ infrastructure is, not to mention the excellent money on offer, there is just no escaping the fact that, for so many, the bottom line on offer elsewhere will always tell.
‘They are working men, don’t forget,’ Warburton said. ‘I laugh when fans talk about so and so being greedy. He is a working man.
‘If he has got a wife and two kids and is offered X amount in Scotland and three times that down south, what is he going to do? Everyone would do the same thing. It is not greed, it is just looking after your family.
‘We have to recognise that. If we lose a player because he is being paid three or four times the money, then that is it. We can’t compete with that.
‘They have got access to TV money that Scottish clubs, at the moment, haven’t got access to.’
It goes without saying that it’s not just Rangers’ incomings that are largely determined by the lucre of the English leagues.
When players are leaving the Scottish top flight for better terms in England’s League Two, even the biggest clubs in the land will be affected. And it’s not just players whose heads can be turned by the chance to double your money.
‘It happens to everyone — I’m not disputing that fact,’ Warburton continued. ‘But any manager will only get touted for jobs if his players do well.
‘I was told five guys had me going to one club last week. It was news to me. But that’s just how the game works.
‘But everyone involved is a working man. If one of our players with two young kids is offered that kind of money, it’s hard for them to say no.
‘What we have to do, from a Rangers perspective, if we lose one of our players is to make sure we lose them on our terms, in terms of the transfer fee.
‘And if we lose out on a signing target, then make sure you have other options.’
In some respects, Warburton’s task is not enviable. Yet, as he’s demonstrated over the past year, it’s not mission impossible either.
But no matter how tempting a deviation from the strategy and the style of play he has moulded may be, the Rangers manager insists the criteria for signing players will remain their suitability — not simply their instant availability.
‘Someone on radio the other day said they wanted a 6ft 4in centrehalf who could head it and kick it and a 6ft 5in centre-forward who could head it in the goal,’ he smiled.
‘That’s not us and will never be us. As long as we are here, we will never play that way.
‘When we are recruiting, if there is someone who is 6ft 5in, can play sharp one-twos and has good movement, then he is on £200,000 a week in the Premier League.
‘That’s the fact of it and they make me laugh. They say you want a box-to-box midfielder who can score 25 goals a season. That’s Frank Lampard.
‘We will keep playing our way and do what we have to do. We have to keep fine-tuning it, find solutions and find better players. We will continue to improve our training, because we will find tough defences in the future.
‘But I think we can go into next season full of confidence in our style of play. Our philosophy won’t change. We have to be brighter with it and better at it.’
“TV audience of 108.7million saw what we are all about”