Latest news with #MarkWarburton
Daily Record
a day ago
- Sport
- Daily Record
Mark Warburton makes astonishing Rangers claims over 55 banner, Petrofac Cup and 'shoddy' exit
The former Rangers boss has looked back at his time at Ibrox in the second part of our exclusive interview Mark Warburton sat down in the hours after his crowning moment as Rangers manager and treated himself to a celebratory glass of wine. But as he sank that first sip, the Englishman soon found himself gulping down the realisation that things would never again be the same for him in Glasgow. The Ibrox gaffer had just masterminded a stunning Scottish Cup semi-final victory over Celtic. By leading the Ibrox Championship squad to a spot-kick triumph over Ronny Deila's Premiership champions at Hampden, he had earned instant adulation from an Ibrox fanbase starved of success. The Light Blue legions were already impressed enough with the job he was doing. Hired in the summer of 2015 to complete the primary task of leading the club back to the Premiership after Stuart McCall's promotion push had faltered the season before, he ticked that challenge off with little fuss with a new-look squad that enthralled the fans with their brand of entertaining, fluid football. But by beating Celtic, however, it quickly dawned on Warburton that he had inadvertently pushed the bar of expectation far higher than the budget he was working with could reach. All of a sudden, simply rejoining their bitter rivals in the top division following a bleak four-year trudge through the lower leagues was no longer enough for the fans and the over-eager Ibrox board. Warburton realised then that the impatient Rangers support would demand to see a team that he knew was nowhere near ready to take on Celtic for honours. As things turned out, he had every right to be worried by that misplaced confidence. The scenes of wild Rangers joy in the directors box served only to convince Dermot Desmond to push the boat out at Parkhead. In came a Titanic name in Brendan Rodgers and a raft of huge signings that would propel a Celtic squad already miles and millions in front of Gers onto another dimension entirely. In the second part of Warburton's exclusive sit-down with Record Sport to mark the 10th anniversary of his Rangers appointment, he looked back and said: 'I remember getting home that night, sitting down for a glass of wine and thinking, 'Oh God!' 'It wasn't in a negative way but it was me realising that our budget was still a fraction of Celtic's. 'Guys like Dom Ball, I kid you not, were probably on one-tenth of what some Celtic players were earning. 'Our entire midfield in that semi-final was on less than one of their midfield players. So my point was, not negatively, but this result is just a building block. 'We knew that nine times out of 10, Celtic would have won that game. 'Then you consider that the next season when we returned to the Premiership, Celtic had added again. They had some real quality on the pitch, bringing in guys like Moussa Dembele. Again, his wage was multiples of most of my squad.' It didn't take long for the new expectation levels to be spelled out for Warburton - in 40ft high letters across the Govan Stand. 'We played Hamilton in the first league game at Ibrox. I remember getting there at 8.55am. 'I used to love getting in early, to get a cuppa and write down some notes before the crowd comes in. 'So I walk down the tunnel. The pitch was being watered, the sun was shining. I'm thinking it was all magnificent. 'Then I look up and see this huge display – Going for 55. 'I immediately thought, who the f*** has done that? 'They were lighting the blue-touch paper for the Ibrox fans when I wanted to calm things down. 'That's not me lacking optimism or desire. No. I just realised that Celtic still probably had five times our budget. I would say conservatively five times more. 'In any other league with that scenario, you've got no chance. 'What really peed me off was that people would say to me, 'Oh you don't know what's expected at Rangers. You don't understand the club. You don't know we have to win every game.' 'Of course I did! Why would I not know that? "They spoke about it as if I was totally ignorant, which I found really, really frustrating. 'I knew the expectation, and I knew what was involved. I think we delivered on that in the first season.' While Rodgers tooled up for Rangers' return by signing Dembele - one of the hottest young talents in Europe at the time - and former Manchester City ace Scott Sinclair, Warburton had to wheel and deal. Clint Hill, 37, and 31-year-old Niko Kranjcar arrived on frees but the veteran former Premier League stars' legs had long slowed past the point where they could match the blistering pace being set by Rodgers' red-hot Celts. Then of course there was a certain Joey Barton. He arrived and immediately aimed a sneering, dismissive dig at the man he was expected to square up to. 'He ain't in my league - he is nowhere the level I am as a player,' spat the controversial Scouser in reference to Celtic skipper Scott Brown. Of course those words were forced straight back down his throat on a mortifying afternoon at Celtic Park. 'It just didn't work out,' said Warburton as he looked back on the Barton signing - an ill-judged experiment that soon blew up with a training ground bust-up in the wake of that 5-1 derby demolition job. 'I'm not going to sit here and criticise Joey. That's not my intention at all. 'But very quickly, you see a couple of social media posts and stuff. You realise Joey is Joey. 'So it didn't work out. An incident happened that was not right — unacceptable. 'The trouble was that Joey had been a big signing, had a big profile. But legally we weren't allowed to say anything about what had happened, so of course, the press had a field day. 'All you read was 'no comment from Warburton, nothing from Rangers' - but we weren't legally allowed to comment. So that was a frustration 'But equally were all the headlines about us being so many points behind Celtic. What did they expect? 'I'm looking at the squad we had. Jason Holt, Andy Halliday, guys I can't speak highly enough about. Dom Ball too. But these were players on minimal wages compared to the sums being spent by Celtic. 'And of course we then have that game at Parkhead. We have Rob Kiernan and Philippe Senderos sent off, are down to nine men with a back three of Barton, Lee Wallace and James Tavernier. 'I remember being told after that game that I should have just shut up shop and taken a 3-1 defeat. 'However, if you remember just after half-time when the score was only 2-1, Barrie McKay fires a huge chance an inch wide of the post. I'm going at that moment, 'We're in this…' 'Celtic scored again but I just felt if we could get another one, the crowd would get nervous again, so what's the point in me shutting up shop and accepting a 3-1 defeat? 'I couldn't do that. 'But even talking to Walter Smith afterwards, he said 'Maybe take the 3-1 because the five really hurts you.' 'But listen, hindsight is a marvellous thing.' Looking back to that humiliating afternoon in September 2016, it was the beginning of the end for Warburton as faith in his management frayed. He limped on until February 2017 before bizarrely learning on TV that he had 'resigned' - despite not having spoken with Ibrox chiefs for over a week before his exit. That was an infuriating episode that seemed to sum up the chaotic world in which Rangers existed at the time. But not nearly as frustrating for Warburton as having the goalposts shifted on his employment objectives. 'My target, set by the board, was to get European football in year three,' he said. 'I said, if we can't get European football by then, we don't deserve to be in the job. 'But suddenly, Brendan comes in and Celtic have their best ever season in the club's history. An invincible season. 'We were still on track for second or third but at that point everything changed - but really all that had changed was the gap to Celtic. 'I thought there was enough credit in the bank from the year before. We'd won the Petrofac Cup, we'd won the league by double-figure points, we'd got to the Scottish Cup final. 'So I felt there was enough credit in the bank.' In the end, Warburton's credit line ran out just hours before he was due to oversee a Scottish Cup tie against Morton. Initially it was reported that he had chosen to step down - but that was news to the Londoner. Rangers insisted Warburton and his No2 Davie Weir had asked to quit 'without compensation' so they could move to Nottingham Forest. The pair did eventually take up a post at the City Ground, but a decade on Warburton continues to argue until he is blue in the face against the narrative laid out by then Ibrox chairman Dave King. 'To this day, it irks me, it frustrates the life out of me, it angers me,' he raged. 'We'd had a board meeting and I knew that the tone had changed and it was wrong, it was inappropriate. 'I referred back to the KPIs, European football next year, not this year, we were sitting second/third. So everything was OK. 'But the gap to Celtic was a dominant factor. 'All I remember was sitting on my sofa one Friday night and my phone started going nuts. At that point I see the yellow ticker tape on Sky Sports saying, 'Mark Warburton resigns from Rangers'. 'But honestly, who resigns from Rangers? You just don't do that. 'So I called Davie Weir and said, 'I think I've just been sacked'. 'Davie goes, 'So have I'. At that point I looked at the ticker tape and it said 'Weir also resigns'. 'I hadn't spoken to Stewart Robertson for around 10 days at that point. But suddenly I get a message saying check your email inbox. That was it. 'We'd never had any conversation. I still have no idea where the resignation thing came from. 'It was obvious the chairman wanted to make a change because of the gap to Celtic. 'It was handled so poorly. Everyone tells me about the integrity and respect of the club, which I absolutely believe in, but on that occasion it couldn't have been more shoddy.'
Daily Record
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Record
The Rangers transfer rinse and repeat scenario Russell Martin simply cannot escape
There's something of an anomaly about the situation Rangers and their supporters find themselves faced with this summer. The need for patience has never felt quite so warranted or so well earned as it does right now. And yet the time for understanding and for trusting in the process may already be running short. A club that has been crying out for a summer of radical, sweeping change is finally entering into the very period of wide ranging recalibration which has been so badly needed for so long. A broken, dysfunctional board has been thanked for its efforts and persuaded to step aside for the greater good. In its place, a harmonious, more far-sighted regime has been installed, headed up by new owners with fresh money and contemporary ideas. In other words, this is precisely the moment these fans have been waiting for. And yet, in so many ways, it's probably starting to feel all a little bit too much like it always tends to do at this time of year. Another summer rebuild is underway already with the aim of overhauling a playing squad which quite patently is not fit for purpose on the back of yet another flaccid campaign of feeble underachievement. The fans have most certainly seen this movie before. Given the enormous size of that task – and with Champions League qualifiers now only one month away – there is a familiar sense of urgency and the need to reinstate a revolving door policy in and out of the car park at the club's Auchenhowie complex. Which is why Rangers fans cannot be blamed if they are beginning to suspect that the more things change, the more they stay the same. They've been asked to take this very leap of faith too many times. Their pride has been bruised by too many painful landings. And yet here they are again, toes curled once more around the same cliff edge and anxiously monitoring developments as the latest waves of comings and goings begin to crash up against the rocks below. It happened under Mark Warburton and Pedro Caixinha. Then Steven Gerrard had several attempts with varying degrees of success. Gio van Bronckhorst had a crack at overseeing something similar in the summer of 2022. And Michael Beale almost wrecked the joint when it was his turn 12 months later in the Summer of Sam Lammers. This time last year Philippe Clement was entrusted with repairing the damage but the Belgian managed only to make it even worse, at a time when the men in charge couldn't oversee a minor stadium revamp, never mind an entire squad overhaul. As a result, Rangers were rendered homeless off the pitch and spineless on it in, perhaps, the most catastrophic episode in a decade of rinse and repeat. No wonder then that patience and trust in the process is in short supply. That's hardly the fault of Andrew Cavenagh or of his new broom leadership group from across the pond. But, regardless, as the club's new figureheads, the onus now falls squarely upon them to shake up all the previous plot lines. As unfair as that may seem at such an early juncture in Cavenagh's overall long term plan, it's fact nonetheless. Welcome to Scotland. The same rule applies to newly installed manager Russell Martin. Or, head coach, to give him his actual, Americanised title. Manager or not, Martin has the responsibility of overseeing this latest summer of change and, unfairly or not, he'll have to do so against the backdrop of so many rebuilds gone so badly wrong. With Peterborough winger and free agent Kwame Poku believed to be among the first raft of imminent arrivals and former Norwich full-back Max Aarons lined up for a loan move from Bournemouth, the early indications point to a policy of raking around in England's basement buckets. Harry Darling of Swansea, meanwhile, who was also believed to be one of Martin's targets, seems set to join Norwich instead. All of this might bring around flashbacks to ten years ago when the foundations for Warburton's big summer build were being sourced predominantly from the same market - at a time when Rangers were still attempting to get back into the top tier of the Scottish game. Again, it's incredibly unfair on Martin to have to wrestle with ghosts from Rangers past just because of the historic misjudgements and misadventures of others. But it's an unavoidable legacy issue nonetheless. At just 39 years old - and on the back of a hugely disappointing loan spell at Ibrox during the cold-sweated madness of Graeme Murty's interim management - he's certainly not lacking in the courage department. On the contrary, Martin must have balls of steel to want to put himself in such a position, with the odds stacked so heavily against him. And especially given that he already had the offer of a far less stressful gig at the King Power Stadium sitting on the table. On top of it all, the delay in finalising the takeover means the Americans were already slipping so far behind the eight ball ahead of the coming campaign that Martin will need to be part magician, part miracle worker in order to fulfil Cavenagh's ambitions of making Rangers great again at the first attempt. Should, however, it transpires that he falls short over the coming months then he'll need to conjure up even greater powers in order to survive in the head coach role for the longer term and to earn himself another shot at it all again this time next year. Patience and time are what Martin needs most of all as he pieces this latest rebuild together. But he's an intelligent man and a deep thinker who will also be smart enough to realise the pair of them make the most unlikely bedfellows in this part of the world. If he wanted to pocket an easier wage packet then he would have chosen a career at Leicester City. Instead, Martin chose life in Scottish football.
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sporting Club JAX appoints former English Premier Leauge as team coach
Sporting Club JAX, the United Soccer League's Northeast Florida expansion, has appointed former English Premier League coach Mark Warburton as the club's first Sporting Director and Head of Soccer. >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Warburton will lead all technical aspects of Sporting JAX's USL professional and pre-professional soccer teams, including the women's USL Super League and men's USL Championship teams, along with the club's USL W League and USL League Two teams. Warburton's immediate priorities will be collaborating to recruit coaching and technical staff for Sporting JAX's historic USL Super League pro women's team, which kicks off its inaugural season at UNF's Hodges Stadium in August. 'Joining Sporting JAX at this pivotal moment is an exceptional opportunity,' said Warburton. 'The club's ambitious vision and commitment to elevating soccer in this community made the decision an easy one. I look forward to working alongside the leadership team to establish world-class programs that lift up the game and expand the USL here in Northeast Florida.' The following bio was provided by Sporitng JAX regarding Warburton's accomplishments: 'As a close associate of some of the English FA's most senior staff, Warburton established a ground-breaking professional Academy at Watford FC and implemented a full-time program that allowed for both sporting and academic excellence, which was replicated by many of the UK's top-flight clubs. Furthermore, he was instrumental in launching the groundbreaking NextGen Series, a European competition for Under 19 pro players, involving many of the world's largest soccer institutions including FC Barcelona, Liverpool FC, Sporting Lisbon, R.S.C. Anderlecht, Glasgow Celtic FC, Borussia Dortmund, Paris St. Germain, Manchester City FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC. The competition transformed youth development to the highest levels in Europe and became the precursor for the current UEFA Youth Champions League.' Season tickets for the USL Super League inaugural season are on sale now at For the latest Sporting JAX news and club updates, follow @Sporting_JAX across all social media channels. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
