EXPECTING Mark Warburton to front up about the potential ramifications of Wednesday's Court of Session ruling on the use of Employee Benefit Trusts at the oldco Rangers is a bit like asking Barack Obama to carry the can for Watergate or thinking Tony Blair should apologise for slavery. Well, the last one of these actually happened but you get the general point. While the Englishman has fought the club's case on at least a couple of occasions this season when he feels it has been wronged, in truth what may or may not have gone on at this club between 2001 and 2010 whilst he was mainly a city trader and a youth coach at Watford is utterly remote to his day job and how he will be judged.

There is the small matter of an outstanding £400,000 payment which chairman Dave King and the current board may have to meet for the sins of the past, which may or may not affect his budget, but that apart harking back to the days of multi million pound players and offshore taxation arrangements could hardly seem less relevant to the mean, lean squad with which the Englishman is currently attempting to win promotion back to the Ladbrokes Premiership. The 53-year-old's focus rests primarily on Saturday's league match with Alloa Athletic at Ibrox and his attempt to reset his club's winning run, having lost their unbeaten league mark at Easter Road last Sunday.

Warburton may feel unqualified to discuss such subjects but not everyone is quite so reticent. The rest of the country, led by the club's detractors, are more than happy to glory in the Ibrox side's fall from grace but thankfully for his sanity, the Rangers manager is not the type who immerses himself in radio phone-ins or the more frenzied internet chat rooms. While the obsessive nature of such comment must be a curiosity to an outsider like him, only once or twice since arriving north of the border this summer has he found that the notorious Glasgow 'goldfish bowl' too suffocating for him.

"Everyone tells me it’s a goldfish bowl, don’t go there, don’t go there," said Warburton. "But it has been great. It's a great city – and the traffic is a lot better than London. Listen, you get different fans. You get one or two remarks that you want to just ignore. But what’s the point in rising to the bait, that’s what they want from you when they make the remark in the first place. You ignore it, you smile and walk on. That’s just day to day life.

"There's definitely no chat-rooms," he added. "I don’t go in there. I learned that very quickly after one week at Brentford last year, when you lose a game and you don’t want to go anywhere near a fans’ forum online. The genuine fans get the message across. That’s enough."

A few messages were being put across loud and clear in the days since the 2-1 defeat at Easter Road which cut the club's advantage at the top of Scotland's second-tier to five points. Warburton, for instance, stressed to his players after training at Murray Park today that his group have actually gained one point more to this stage of the season than runaway winners Hearts had 12 months previously. There is a sense that it would be wrong to overreact to a match against Hibs which could have gone either way, and to a backdrop where Rangers to date have dealt more comfortably with their meetings with the championship's other teams than Alan Stubbs' side have to date.

"I didn’t need to pick the players up," said Warburton. "We have to channel our anger and our frustration. We’ve asked the players and they were equally as wound up as we were. But it’s important to stress that we’re one point ahead of where Hearts were at this stage last season. We know we’ve got to be more clinical and take our chances. But we’re in good shape, the squad is healthy and we’re looking forward to Saturday."

Having been permitted the chance to train on the artificial surface of Recreation Park earlier in the season, Rangers were in the rare position this week to repay the favour by allowing Danny Lennon's side a preparatory training session at Ibrox. "It was a fair thing to do," said Warburton. "We wanted to train on their surface and they kindly allowed it, so when they made the request back we agreed to it. Everyone is happy."

Keeping all his players so contented at a club like Rangers is no easy feat, but Warburton is true to his word when it comes to running with a small squad in an attempt to ensure everyone feels close to the first team. One such selection conundrum is brewing in his central defence, where Warburton went with Rob Kiernan, Danny Wilson and Dominic Ball in a three-man backline at Hibs but will almost certainly return to a flat back four against the Wasps. "We have three centre halves, who are fighting for the shirts," said Warburton. "I am all about rewarding guys who come in and take their chance then it is up to the other guys to fight for it back." Saturday's match will also see Rangers commemorate Remembrance Day with special poppy strips as a mark of respect and a card display in the Sandy Jardine stand.