AT a club like Rangers you are only ever as good as your last result. Even if the penultimate one was your club's best in four years, a historic victory against your Old Firm rivals which was transmitted to a global TV audience in excess of £100m. Mark Warburton was issued with a swift reminder of this old truism as he consulted his phone in the hours after Wednesday night's 3-2 defeat to Hibs at Easter Road.
"I got a barrage of abuse because we lost a game," said the Englishman. "Just on social media, but I thought 'where did that come from? 'Wow, I got three days' grace'. But that is the nature of it."
If ever there was a group of football players who must be tempted to exhale and regather themselves for a minute it is the Ibrox club. Having completed their return journey by the end of March, and scaled their personal mountain against Celtic, their next match of genuine import is fully a month away, the William Hill Scottish Cup final against Hibs. How this small group of players, who have been relied upon all season, must feel like some time off to recharge their batteries.
Read more: Hibs win over Rangers will have no bearing on Scottish Cup final
Wednesday night, though, was a warning shot across those boughs. Three league matches remain - against Alloa, Livingston and St Mirren - with the first, on Saturday, seeing the club presented with the Ladbrokes Championship trophy in front of a capacity Ibrox crowd. Warburton gave his players yesterday off - "not for a jolly up, but because sometimes after everything that happened you need to have a sleep, have a rest, and sit in the garden with the kids" - only to find that Wes Foderingham, Rob Kiernan, Dominic Ball and Jason Holt had all come into Murray Park to use the gym anyway. He senses no lack of motivation in his dressing room.
"We want them to enjoy it, but imagine how much of a dampener it would be if you lose to Alloa," said Warburton. "If we don't get a result it will be a little bit subdued and we don't want that. How do we motivate them? They are playing in front of 50,000. Swindon had a good team, but Wes used to play in front of 6,000. Rob was at Birmingham it was 10,000."
The cup final is fully 20 days after their league campaign concludes, while the Easter Road club at least have the play-offs to keep them occupied.
The brains trust at Rangers - including sports scientist Craig Flannigan and head of performance and analysis Neil McIlhargey - are already computing how to get these players at Hampden on May 21 in peak shape, for a match fully 20 days after their last competitive fixture. Martyn Waghorn will return next week, and Warburton is hopeful that Harry Forrester will also be available for the final, with the club's preparations due to culminate with a match against a Barclays Premier League side south of the border and a week of regular training at Murray Park, rather than a sun-kissed training camp at La Manga or such like. Opponents Hibs, of course, will be match ready due to their involvement in the play-offs.
"We're going to give the boys three or four days off and then we'll go and play a Premier League down south team behind closed doors and then just train as normal," he said. "But it's a real challenge and we had the same problem down south. There's no masking it, it's difficult. You can have too many big games if you're involved in the play-offs or too few games if you aren't.
"For me, if you go to La Manga, the sun is shining and it's a holiday destination and there's people walking by with their flip flops on and their surfboards on their shoulder," said Warburton. "It's a mindset thing. It's a long season and the boys aren't far away from vacation and once you start going to these environments it's too easy to think that."
Warburton is learning to love life in Glasgow, even if "one slip up can cause a furore". He and his backroom staff can surely be afforded one moment to wallow in the penultimate result, rather than the last one. "Frank [McParland, the director of recruitment] has worked at Liverpool in the Champions League and was there on that dramatic night in Istanbul," said Warburton. "He has seen the fans at Anfield and he couldn’t believe driving into the stadium on Sunday morning. The enormity and size of the club hit even Frank. There were thousands of blue shirts and scarves and it was magnificent."
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