“Cruciate injuries, ankle injuries, reconstructions, back problems, lower-back problems,” Mark Warburton recites the list like an overworked physiotherapist surveying his list of patients for the day ahead.

He is, instead, recalling a story from the past, documenting the various ailments which prevented his players at Brentford from training on the plastic pitch at the Skybet Championship club’s training ground last season. It is a similar story this time around, he says, at Murray Park.

The Rangers manager is no fan of artificial surfaces. He understands that in an era of financial drought they are a necessary evil for smaller clubs trying to keep their heads above water. After sampling his first Scottish winter, he is similarly aware of the havoc the weather plays with the fixture list and, indeed, the state of grass pitches themselves. Nevertheless, he says that, at the elite level, Scottish clubs should be seeking to emulate their counterparts in England where plastic pitches are circumscribed in the top flight and he is genuinely concerned about the long-term wellbeing of players who are subjected to jarring falls on outmoded artificial pitches. Warburton thinks Scotland should follow suit in limiting their use.

“Please don’t write ‘Warburton blasts’ because I’m not,” he said. “I’m just giving an opinion. I understand the financial implications, I get all that. You can hire your pitch out every evening for much-needed revenue. But we are talking about the game and seeking investment. So, at some stage, you have to separate the elite. You have to. Whether it’s just Premier League pitches or both I don’t know.

“But you have to set a directive in place because it can’t be a generic, one cap fits all because of the financial situation. I know it’s about money, but you have to find a way of improving the overall product. I don’t think you are going to get investment in the game if you are playing on inconsistent artificial surfaces.”

Alloa Athletic are one such club who benefit from renting their surface out but there is a consequence to prolonged use. The joke doing the rounds lately is that the surface at the Indodrill Stadium, where Rangers face the Clackmannanshire club tomorrow, is more Ali G than 3G. For his part, Warburton believes that grass is always greener and echoes the St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright, who earlier this week, said that he had to omit his main striker Steven MacLean for games against Queen of the South and Kilmarnock over the course of the past two seasons.

“I’m a grass man in terms of playing surface,” said Warburton. “I understand the problems with the weather but I prefer grass. We don’t know enough about the long-term impact. We have players training every single day on artificial surfaces ¬- where are they going to be in 10-15 years’ time in terms of their joints?

“The short-term, superficial stuff? The last time we played a game [on it against Falkirk], Rob Kiernan and Danny Wilson had serious abrasions that stopped them training for two or three days. That’s the cuts and bruises you get on the surface but it’s the long term wear on the joints where there’s a big question still and that’s where the SPFA made a great point. To move to more artificial surfaces is a mistake.

“Maybe at the top tier, at Premier League level, for example, possibly it should be sacrosanct. I’m sure a lot of managers feel the same ¬- I saw Tommy Wright’s comments in the papers and a lot of managers are old fashioned in terms of grass pitches. They are difficult to maintain and it is expensive and the ground staff have a tough job with the weather we’ve had this year but if you ask any supporter they will take grass all day long ahead of artificial.”

Players, too, it seems with Fraser Wishart, the chief executive of PFA Scotland, admitting earlier this week that his members would prefer that steps were taken to have the surfaces banned. Warburton applauds the sentiment.

“I thought it [Wishart’s statement] was very good. That’s his job. He hasn’t shirked responsibility, he’s made a really strong point and I thought it was prepared really well. It made perfect sense to me – you just don’t know what the implications are.”

Any putative solution for the smaller clubs, returns Warburton to a well-worn theme. Chiefly, that until there is sufficient investment in the Scottish game then the status quo will prevail but he admits he would welcome the opportunity to present his ideas to the game’s powerbrokers. As ever, though, the specifics of how Scottish football addresses those concerns is a nebulous concept.

‘A lot of people seem to accept it. I’m always told, ‘it is what it is.’ It can’t be that way. We have to strive to get better. I will always give an opinion. If I am asked I just say what I think. You can’t be satisfied. I hear people ask, ‘where have all the Scottish players gone? Where is the challenge of the young players? That’s all linked to money. It’s all linked to investment.”