MARK WARBURTON admits he faces a tough sales pitch to lure signing targets to Rangers this summer and overcome the negative impression of a distressed club that many players have become accustomed to seeing in recent years.
The Ibrox boss has already clinched deals for Accrington Stanley pair Matt Crooks and Josh Windass ahead of the Gers’ return to the Premiership next term but he will need at least another half-a-dozen new recruits to add strength and depth to his squad for a top flight title challenge and possible Europa League campaign.
With Scottish football’s standing at arguably an all-time low and Rangers still on the road to recovery, the Englishman may encounter difficulties in persuading players to make the move north of the border in the coming months.
Warburton has enjoyed considerable success shopping in the English market already as he has overhauled his squad since arriving at Ibrox last summer, but he knows getting players to make the trip to Glasgow is the hardest part of all as he looks to sell his targets on his vision for the future.
“There are a generation of young players [who] grew up thinking of Rangers being in financial trouble and administration. That is how they thought of Rangers,” he said.
“The hardest job we have got is getting people up here. Once we land them in Glasgow and show them Auchenhowie and show them Ibrox, done. You guys, papers, there you go.
“We had a guy in last week. There you go, there is the press, every single day and they get it straight away. The hard part is getting them to Glasgow, as bizarre as that might sound, because they have got this impression in their mind.
“This season it was the Championship and I don’t want to play there. Is the league good enough? If they have got English Championship clubs calling for them on more money, then we have got a hard sell. When we get them here, you can sell it, absolutely sell it.”
Rangers will return to pre-season action on June 18 as they build-up for a shot at the Premiership title next term and look to close the gap to Old Firm rivals Celtic as quickly as possible.
Warburton confirmed this week that he is keen to have the majority of his deals done before for the first days of preparation at Murray Park to allow his squad to settle ahead of a training camp in America and first competitive games of the new campaign.
The Gers boss has open lines of communication with the Ibrox hierarchy over his transfer plans this summer and he insists he is not fazed at the prospect of being priced out of moves by clubs in England as players are lured by the bigger wages on offer elsewhere.
“They are working men don’t forget,” he said. “I laugh when supporters talk about so and so being greedy. He is a working man. If he has got a wife and two kids and is offered X in Scotland and three times that down south, what is he going to do? Everyone around this table would do the same thing. It is not greed, it is just looking after your family. We have to recognise that.
“If we lose a player because he is being paid three or four times the money, that is it. We can’t compete with that. They have got access to TV money that Scottish clubs, at the moment, haven’t got access to. So it is a recognition of that fact and move on.
“We are going to lose targets simply because of the fact that club X comes in and pays them three times what we can afford to pay.”
While Warburton is keen to add numbers and quality to his squad in the coming months, his position at Ibrox could well also come under the spotlight over the course of the close season.
The former Brentford manager has been linked with a number of vacancies south of the border during his first season in Glasgow and his reputation remains high after winning the Championship and Petrofac Training Cup and he guided his side into the Scottish Cup final against Hibernian next month.
It is a situation Warburton is prepared for, however, as he focuses on the job in hand ahead of a crucial few weeks on and off the park for Rangers.
“It happens to everyone. I’m not disputing that fact,” Warburton said. “But any manager will only get touted for jobs if his players do well. So you’ve almost got a vicious circle. The players do well, they get linked to other clubs. Then the manager gets told he’s going somewhere. I was told five guys had me going to one club last week. It was news to me. But that’s just how the game works.”
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