da bet esporte： Mark Warburton’s second season didn’t pan out the way anyone at Ibrox wanted, not least the supporters, so while it’s been an acrimonious and dramatic week, it’s far from all doom and gloom at the club.
da brwin： Rangers fans are now focused on the future and speculating about which manager will come in. Will it be Alex McLeish? Derek McInnes? Tommy Wright? Those are the favourites for the position right now and probably just a few of the names likely to be linked with the club over the coming days, weeks and potentially months.
What’s certain though is that Rangers are unlikely to miss Warburton. There had been a groundswell of opinion of him not being the man to take the ‘Gers forward anyway and it’s a chance for a fresh start to try and close the gap on Celtic.
Here are FIVE ways life will get better for Rangers fans now that Mark Warburton is gone…
No more ‘philosophy’
Mark Warburton arrived with a big reputation for playing football ‘the right way’ and with a style that was easy on the eye. The reality though, is that the only thing that matters to football fans is results and if your style of football, or philosophy, isn’t working then it’s a problem.
The former Brentford man’s insistence on playing attacking and passing football showed his naivety when he came up against Celtic. A semi-final penalties win aside, Celtic battered Rangers when Warburton was boss and the Ibrox manager didn’t have an answer.
The right way to play football is with a winning mentality, desire and determination. While his side showed that in the first half of last season, since then it’s been lacking and that’s on Warburton for the most part, not the squad available to him. Ultimately he was unable to impart his footballing knowledge on his players effectively.
Tactical diversity
Rangers, even when winning consistently, have been pretty much one note tactically over the last 20 months. At times it felt like Mark Warburton was playing players out of their natural position just so he could set-up with his desired shape week-to-week. That led to disjointed and frustrating performances.
The Ibrox side need a manager that can adapt and change the game-plan depending on opposition and a manager that can change a game in the middle of a match.
There are games in which Rangers will dominate possession but equally, they will often find themselves having to adopt a more canny way of playing when teams have their tails up – especially away. Warburton never seemed to quite catch on to that and in fact hadn’t won two league matches in a row away from home in over a year by the time he left the club.
A more motivated side
There’s no doubt that one of the main problems with the Rangers team has been motivation, especially in bigger games.
We saw that against Celtic on three occasions but it was perhaps most apparent at Tynecastle just a few weeks ago when Warburton’s side were smashed 4-1 by Hearts.
That night the team didn’t look like they wanted to play for Rangers and as any fan will tell you, that’s an absolute requirement at Ibrox. You have to be motivated to give the performance of your life every time you step out onto the pitch because every side is hoping to take you down.
Whether he lost the faith of the dressing room or whether it was just a general malaise doesn’t matter, Warburton wasn’t inspiring his side anymore and that’s reason enough for ‘Gers fans to be hopeful of life ahead.
Better recruitment
A much repeated theme of Warburton’s time at Rangers was that he didn’t have the resources required to be competitive in the same way Celtic are. While that’s true in some respects, given the way Warburton dealt in the transfer market with the resources he had, who’s to say having more money available would have been beneficial?
For instance, Joe Garner joined Rangers for a reported fee of £1.5m which is far beyond what most clubs can afford to pay for a player in Scotland. That outlay has seen only a three-goal return in Garner’s time at the club so far.
That’s not a one off either; big wages offered to Joey Barton and Niko Krancjar took a significant chunk out of Rangers’ playing budget and both turned out to be poor acquisitions with one dramatically leaving the club just months later and the other ruled out with a long-term injury.
Better recruitment is surely on the way compared to what Warburton had to offer.
A more settled XI
Martyn Waghorn has lifted the lid on some of the problems at Rangers in recent days and according to him, one of them was Warburton’s insistence on changing the side every week.
As quoted by The Daily Record, Waghorn said: “It’s been difficult one. People don’t know if they are playing, they are in and out. There has been a lot of uncertainty at times.”
That uncertainty must have played its part in poor results across the season and if Waghorn is correct, then Rangers fans can look forward to a much more settled XI knowing its individual and collective roles.