As a sales pitch, Rangers’ thrilling Scottish Cup semi-final win over auld rivals Celtic at Hampden last weekend was as effective as those Boxing Day bonanzas that manage to get the entire, salivating population of Britain elbowing, biting and gouging each other outside a shopping mall at the crack of dawn.
Depending on who you listen to, it seemed just about everybody on the planet, with the exception of say the Sentinelese tribe of India, tuned into the telly to watch a barnstorming battle between the two Glasgow giants.
The dust has settled and for Mark Warburton, the Rangers manager, it is very much a case of onwards and upwards. Preparing for life back in the upper echelons of the Scottish game, as well as the enticing prospect of European football should they win the Scottish Cup, will keep the Englishman busy over the summer and as far as drafting in new recruits to bolster his squad for frontline action is concerned, Warburton knows just how powerful the images of last Sunday can be.
When he was mulling over the prospect of taking on the Rangers job last year, he was convinced to take it on when his young son showed him a YouTube clip of a jam-packed Ibrox bouncing and bawling ahead of an encounter with Celtic.
“He showed me that ‘Penny Arcade, 3-2 Rangers’ clip and he said to me ‘how can you not take this club?’,” recalled Warburton. “We can do that now. We can go and say click on that game from last week and that’s what you could be involved with. From a recruitment perspective you have to use every tool you can and if we can throw European football into the mix then fantastic. You win the Old Firm game and everyone calls from clubs overseas who are all watching. The reach of the Old Firm game is evident.”
The transfer market is always a fevered scene of comings and goings. There will, no doubt, be a few ins and outs and one sad sight in the corridors of Murray Park the other day was a forlorn David Templeton hirpling about with an injury that has kept him sidelined for most of the season. The future remains uncertain for a player who was set to be a key part of the Rangers revival.
“It’s been difficult for Temps and you have to feel for him,” admitted his manager. “He came in for the first three games and then got the impact injury and he’s never played since. It’s tough. That is the nature of football unfortunately. Frank McParland (the chief scout) has a job to go out and get player, player, player. The game moves on, players keep developing and moving and thriving. You look at the start of the season, if I said to you would Barrie McKay be doing what he’s doing now, you’d have said ‘no’. We’ll have our discussions with Temps but it’s such a tough industry being a footballer.”
Being a manager is hardly a walk in Kelvingrove Park either. Trying to get players rested, bring a few new faces in, get a pre-season programme devised and have them up and running for a new campaign in an increasingly short period of time can leave gaffers scratching their heads like Stan Laurel trying to fathom out a clue in the Sunday Herald crossword.
Should Rangers lift the Scottish Cup, the prospect of European qualifiers makes the whole close-season ever more hectic.
“We haven’t done it yet (get into Europe) but if we did, the first game of the Europa League is July 14,” explained Warburton. “It’s difficult. The boys have three weeks off, then start a pre-season programme and you have to introduce new players to your staff. We go overseas to South Carolina on June 27 and play one game. We come back on July 8 and we could have a European game in six days? It’s nuts. But what do you do? You can’t run the players the first week and go straight into a friendly. All that happens is you’d have four, five, six players in the injury room. What we have to do is have experience and quality in the squad to cope with that. It would be a nightmare to go into European qualifying and have two really bad performances. People talk about League Cup games and summer soccer, but how does it work? As of now our players will break up on May 22 and they’ll be back three and half weeks later. Already you have a really condensed rest period. The players are the most important part. We need them fit.”
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