MARK Warburton, the Rangers manager, said last night that clinching the championship title was just the beginning of what he is looking to achieve at the Ibrox club.
A single-goal victory against Dumbarton, courtesy of a second half James Tavernier strike, sealed the Ladbrokes Championship title with four games to spare and secured the club's place in next season's Premiership. Having booked their return to the top flight following a four-year absence, the Englishman said the worst thing the club could do now was rest on their laurels.
READ MORE: Rangers 1 Dumbarton 0: James Tavernier puts finishing touch on a long journey back
"It’s the first step," said Warburton. "The worst thing we can do is stop here. We’ve got to look forward. We want to get 91 points in the league, win it with style and gain momentum for next season.
“We’re just delighted, especially for the fans, understanding what they’ve been through," he added. “It’s great for them and the club to get back into the top tier. It was a really clear directive for the players on what they had to do this season.
“We felt the weight of expectation and they delivered. It’s hard to win games in this division when eight, nine, 10 men behind ball, it’s hard to break teams down. We had to be patient but we got the goal, got the result and we’re delighted."
It means that the Englishman, formerly manager of Brentford, has delivered handsomely on his job specification. “We knew what we had to do, no grey area," he said. "We had to get the club back into top flight, that was very clear to us. We’re delighted with that. We brought in 11 players with 16 going out but they’ve adjusted and adapted."
READ MORE: Rangers 1 Dumbarton 0: James Tavernier puts finishing touch on a long journey back
After a jubilant lap of honour, Warburton permitted his players a glass of champagne in the dressing room, but it is back to work this morning, with the Petrofac Cup final against Peterhead on Sunday then the William Hill Scottish Cup semi-final against Celtic.
"They have to enjoy this moment," he said. "Champagne, that’s fine. But we’re back into work this week. We’ve got a cup final at the weekend, no gimmes. If we’re not prepared, we’ll get hurt. If we drop our standards, we get punished. We can’t do that. It can’t happen, not here and not in front of 50,000 at Hampden."
Andy Halliday, a boyhood Rangers fan, said that the Ibrox club were progressing with every passing week and set his sights on competing for the Premiership title straight away. At the end of a jubilant lap of honour, he ended up in the front of the Broomloan Stand, singing with a megaphone.
“They were asking me to give me a song, but I had to be careful which one I picked," he said. "I managed to grab the mic, but I didn't sing for too long because my throat hasn’t been too great over the last few days.
READ MORE: Rangers 1 Dumbarton 0: James Tavernier puts finishing touch on a long journey back
"I just told myself before the game that whatever is going to happen just savour it because you don't know how often you are going to experience things like that on a football park. As usual, I got carried away again.
"We have got to be challenging for the title, it is as simple as that," he added. "That is not me being arrogant or disrespectful to Celtic at all, they are four in a row and going for another title, but you can't be at a club like this and be happy for second.
"I think we are getting better and better. The last few weeks maybe our performances haven't been quite as fluent and I don't quite know what to put that down to but I still maintain we are doing the right things and our intensity is very good. We said that we didn't want to peter out over the line because the standards have been better than that but trust me Rangers are going to get better and better next season."
Halliday paid tribute to his team-mates and manager for the turnaround in the club's fortunes. "It was a team and a squad which wasn't in great shape, coming off the end of last year," he said. "The gaffer has come in with Davie [Weir] and he has had to put a squad together and stamp a philosophy and a style of play together early. We got the players we wanted pretty early in pre-season which helped.
READ MORE: Rangers 1 Dumbarton 0: James Tavernier puts finishing touch on a long journey bac
“Even if you asked the English boys now they’d tell you it took them two days to work out what this club was all about," he added. "When you play for Rangers it’s a 24/7 lifestyle. You are going to be stopped in the street and sometimes it’s not nice things you hear but that goes with the territory. You have got to deal with that in the right manner. That’s the expectation and I think we’ve managed to do that really well."
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