DAVID WEIR has revealed that his faith in the new board at Rangers convinced him to advise Mark Warburton to take up the manager’s job at Ibrox.
The Rangers No.2, speaking exclusively to The Herald, said he paused for thought when the posts at Ibrox became available.
“I had hesitations but only in respect of Mark,” he says. Weir joined Warburton at Brentford in December 2013, helping to take the club into the Championship where they impressed.
They left in February after the owner, Matthew Benham, announced plans to introduce a new management system with a coach reporting to a sporting director.
Weir, who had joined Warburton after a brief spell in charge of Sheffield United, explained the hesitation, saying: “Mark’s reputation in the game is really good. We have been successful and he was going to get his pick of jobs. I was conscious that I didn’t want my heart ruling my head, particularly in regard to what I said to Mark. I did not want to push him. That was my biggest fear.”
He added: “We had to do it for the right reasons and obviously Mark asked a lot of questions and I was as honest I could be. I told him I felt the people in charge of the club now were there for the long term and there for the right reasons.”
He added: “I told Mark: ‘This will change your life. You will be the first English manager. It is not a thing that comes around very often. It is a great opportunity but be aware of the attention and the significance of the role. You are the spokesperson for half of Scotland really. It will affect everything, your family, how you are perceived. No longer will you be able to slip under the radar’.’’
Weir was positive about the interaction with the board, saying: “So far it has all gone well.”
Of the budget for transfers, he said: “It is comparative to the budget that we had at Brentford. I told Mark: ‘We can put a team together with that budget’. We were operating in the Championship on the second or third lowest budget and we achieved success in the face of bigger budgets. We knew we could put a team together with relatively sensible money. But we would back ourselves if we got bigger money too.’’
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