KRIS BOYD, the former Rangers striker, has urged Ibrox chairman Dave King to back his management team in the transfer market this month or risk losing them in the summer.

Rangers have already missed out on one January target in Toumani Diagouraga – the Brentford midfielder instead signing for Leeds United – and have yet to conclude a deal for another in St Johnstone’s Michael O’Halloran.

King said back in September that Rangers will “do business in the January transfer window”, and with just six days left, Boyd believes it is time for the chairman to provide the funds that would allow manager Mark Warburton to bring in the players he wants. Failing to do so, he warns, could see Warburton and assistant David Weir walk away from the club, even if they win promotion.

“When you have a board or a chairman trying to get people back onside by saying: ‘We will spend money, we will do this . . .’ then go and back the manager,” said the Kilmarnock forward. “Everyone in Scottish football has been pleasantly surprised by the way that Mark Warburton and Davie Weir have gone about their business and the attractive football that they’ve brought back to Rangers.

“But, at the end of the day, if they come up this year and the two of them leave and go back down the road [to English football] then I don’t think that the club can have any complaints.

“Ultimately, if you’re promising someone something and you don’t give it to them then why would they stay? It works both ways. The manager has come up with a plan and said they’ll do this and do that – they’ve done their job with what they have.

“It’s now up to the club to go and back them and strengthen the squad. If there’s no money there then I don’t understand why the statements [from King] were made in the first place. If there’s money there, then you’re going to have to back the manager.

“You could say that [the management team] have been let down although, at the same time, they were given money at the start of the season. But we’ve been reading things like: ‘We’ll spend £3-5m in January so that we don’t need to spend when we go back up’. Well, go and do it. The big thing for Rangers fans is that they’ve been lied to all along for the last five or six years. You want a structure put in place but, at the same time, it’s up to the board to go and back the manager.”

King was critical of Boyd and the other players that left Ibrox in the summer, saying they had “failed miserably” last season after Rangers were unsuccessful in their attempts to win promotion. The Kilmarnock striker, though, says those comments have no relation to his feelings on the current situation at the club.

“When you look back to last summer, I can look at myself in the mirror and admit that I had been rubbish last season” he added.

“Did I deserve to stay at Rangers? No, I didn’t. So, when a new manager is coming in to revamp the whole thing, forget Kris Boyd and everyone else who didn’t perform for them last year. We weren’t good enough - that’s it, simple as that. But what I will say is that, when you’re being promised this and promised that and trying to get everybody onside by having a go at us…forget us and back the manager.

“We’re away, we’re finished. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what Kris Boyd or any of those other players has done. Now is the time to support the manager. It would be easy to sit here and go on and on all day about [the criticism from King]. He’ll say he’s right and I’ll say that I’m right. To be honest, I couldn’t give a toss what anyone has to say about me. I’ve had that all my days and it doesn’t really bother me.”

Kris Boyd was speaking to promote H2-O, a new education programme courtesy of Scottish Water and the Scottish Professional Football League Trust, which encourages children to exercise and stay hydrated.