MARK WARBURTON, the Rangers manager, has dismissed speculation connecting him with the Everton job, joking that he will be being linked with posts at major Spanish clubs next. Warburton’s name has repeatedly cropped up whenever vacancies have arisen in England on the back of his previously successful stint with Brentford and an impressive maiden campaign with Rangers. With Roberto Martinez’s position at Everton thought to be increasingly under danger as a result of his side’s poor run of form, Warburton has emerged as a possible contender to replace him. But the Englishman, crowed PFA Scotland’s manager of the year on Sunday night, laughed off the suggestion, instead praising his players for their achievements.
“Who is it this time? I can't stop that. It will be Barcelona and Real Madrid next. The only time you get linked to big clubs is when the players are doing well. It's as simple as that. If you lose 12 on the spin you won't be linked with any jobs. Don't forget they won the league convincingly, they won the Petrofac [Training Cup] and beat Celtic in the [William Hill Scottish Cup] semi-final and have reached a domestic final. It's all credit to the players.”
Rangers played their final league match of the season against St Mirren on Sunday and now have almost three weeks to recuperate before facing Hibernian in the Scottish Cup final. Warburton has afforded his players four days’ rest before they return to training on Friday ahead of closed doors friendly against Tottenham Hotspur next week.
“It’s really important that the players use their time off wisely,” he told Rangers TV. “They’ve worked hard and earned this four days off. It’s a chance to rest, to recover, to take some time off with their family, go away for a few days and they need that after a long and hard season.
“Don’t forget that they are young players and that there are a number of players who have played in nearly every minute of every game like Lee Wallace, Wes Foderingham and James Tavernier and it’s a real testament to them.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel