Mark of the man to come after settling season, says Smith
MARK WARBURTON and Walter Smith are worlds apart in their approach to managing Rangers. The purist, however, is burdened by the same demands the pragmatist was during two spells in charge of the club — produce winning teams and don’t settle for playing second fiddle to Celtic.
As the current Ibrox boss’s unremitting commitment to a brand of football continues to go questioned on a weekly basis of its rocky introduction to the Premiership, Smith admits that Warburton will need to prove by next season that his way can lift Rangers into a challenging position against his old rivals.
Yet there is more chance of Rangers failing through a lack of investment, Smith says, than on the renowned bind with idealism that served the Englishman so well in a maiden season of ascent and achievement.
‘Yes, his philosophy’s different from mine but, then, so is Pep Guardiola’s,’ said Smith of the clash of styles between two Rangers bosses. ‘That doesn’t prevent anybody from being successful.
‘As managers now, we know we’ve got to win. Mark’s got his way of playing and bits of that philosophy have to turn itself into a winning philosophy.
‘That’s his job and that’s the way he chooses to do it.
‘I found myself being a bit more pragmatic in the way I went about the job. That’s not a criticism, that’s just the way I see it. Mark sees it another way. He’s shown what he’s going to do in terms of playing but he still needs a higher level of player.’
Warburton and Smith (below) have clearly discovered plenty common ground when coming together socially or sharing a pot of coffee after matches at Ibrox. Those meetings were alluded to a few weeks ago by Warburton — who has described himself as ‘the outsider coming in’ — as an opportunity for him to tap into Smith’s vast knowledge and experience of dealing with the unique pressures and added noise of being manager in an Old Firm environment.
That intensity has been ramped up markedly, particularly as the disastrous signing of Joey Barton proved to be quite so destructive so quickly to Warburton’s hopes of confirming pre-season predictions that Rangers might contend for the title in their first season back in the top flight.
‘I’ve been out with him a couple of times but I’d never say what I said to him could be termed “advice”, so I think Mark was being nice to me there,’ said Smith of his chats with the 15th manager in the club’s history.
‘I speak to him about football. He’ll have his own ideas about managing Rangers.
‘And there are aspects about it that John Greig and I, if he asks us, can answer him. But it doesn’t happen on a regular basis. He’s asked me a couple of things about Rangers and how I found it.
‘I’d supported Rangers, of course, but I went to Dundee United. And when I went to Rangers, I could see the massive difference in the clubs even though Rangers were really struggling in 1986. You could see the differences in what was needed to handle the club.
‘You can’t tell anybody that. It’s something they have to experience. It goes back to the Bill Struth line about being able to play against Rangers, but can you play for them? These are things he’ll need to pick up but I don’t think there’s any doubt Mark knows the enormity of the task he has taken on.’ That task, says Smith, should factor in a season of grace for Warburton’s rebuilding which has been beset by the Barton debacle and injuries to highly-touted Niko Kranjcar and Jordan Rossiter.
‘There’s an understanding from everyone, if they’re sensible about it, that they’ve 1) got financial problems and 2) got a load of other problems in the aftermath of four years they were mismanaged,’ said Smith.
‘They have a new board that has to handle all that plus try to find investment for the team. It’s a difficult period for the club on and off the pitch.
‘Common sense would tell you it’ll take a little bit of time. So they’ve got a year!
‘I think, this season, even the most fervent Rangers fan would look realistically and say that if they finished second and, towards the end of the season, started to look as though they were getting closer to Celtic, that would be acceptable.
‘That would be a good season for Rangers.
‘Next season, whatever happens, there will need to be a bigger challenge to Celtic and a bigger push, which means trying to find a level of investment. That’s where the club have a problem. There’s no use sitting at Rangers saying it can’t be done. They know they’ve got to do it. And Mark will know that.
‘The gap is apparent to everybody. So you would look to see if they can close that a little bit in the January transfer window. They have to show, through performances, they’re getting closer to Celtic and show that, with a bit more investment, they can get up to putting in a legitimate challenge.
‘I think Rangers are still the only team that can put in a legitimate challenge but it will take a settling-in period — and that settling-in period is this season.’
Walter Smith was speaking at the opening of the new state-of-the-art £1.5million clubhouse at Torrance Park Golf Club near Motherwell.