SHOW US THE MONEY
Souness calls on King to deliver on his promise
GRAEME SOUNESS last night challenged Dave King to find the cash to bridge the ‘five-year’ gulf between Rangers and Celtic.
The former Ibrox boss believes chairman King made a mistake raising the expectation levels of the Rangers fan base by publicly pledging £30million of his own money as part of the £50m he estimated during his takeover was required to make the team genuine rivals to Celtic.
In the summer, Mark Warburton bolstered his squad to land the ill-fated Joey Barton and Niko Kranjcar, plus Joe Garner, Clint Hill and Matt Gilks. The former Brentford boss also signed younger players like Josh Windass, Matt Crooks, Jordan Rossiter, Lee Hodson and Joe Dodoo.
But after watching his old club lose 1-0 to Celtic in the Betfred Cup semi-final on Sunday — on the back of a 5-1 thumping at Celtic Park in September — Souness
believes it is glaringly obvious the board need to back Warburton with serious cash. Souness said: ‘Rangers need better players — and that will take money. ‘The owner needs to find some money for the manager because he’s operating with one hand tied behind his back at the moment. ‘You can’t come out and say you’re going to spend this and spend that if you haven’t got it. If you end up not spending it, that is a mistake because it raised the expectations of the support. ‘Rangers supporters have proven themselves over the last few years, turning up in numbers. They expect — so now the owner’s got to support the manager.’ Souness believes the two comprehensive Old Firm losses suffered by his old club already this season were no surprise, given how far Celtic are ahead of Rangers. ‘We can all feel disappointed about losing to Celtic again but I think it’s to be expected,’ he said. ‘They are five years ahead of us. ‘That doesn’t mean it will be like this for the next five years, but in the last five years they have had far more opportunity to strengthen. ‘Mark Warburton is working with a very limited budget, so these two results have been expected and are predictable. ‘Right now, we are playing catch-up. We will need some money, some clever buying and we will also need some luck.’