MARK WARBURTON has expressed his delight after Rangers rounded off a busy day of transfer activity with a 2-0 victory over Annan at Ibrox.
Warburton completed his ninth signing of the summer as forward Joe Dodoo signed a four-year deal on Tuesday afternoon. There was further good news for the Englishman when Wes Foderingham, James Tavernier and Rob Kiernan all put pen-to-paper on extensions to their contracts, while talks are continuing with striker Martyn Waghorn.
Victory at Ibrox was the finale to a productive day for Warburton as he continues his preparations for the new campaign and he is pleased to see three of his Championship stars committing their futures to the club.
“I’m delighted with the work we’ve done,” he said. “All credit to Andrew Dickson, Stewart Robertson and Frank McParland for all the work they’ve done behind the scenes. To get Wes Foderingham, Rob Kiernan and James Tavernier to extend their deals by a year is good news.
“What you don’t want is for your squad to all be out of contract at the same time because that’s a recipe for disaster so there will be different conversations with different people at different times.
“Our squad unity is good and we’re being pro-active on a number of fronts. We welcome Joe Dodoo as well. All the paperwork has come through and he’s now eligible to play on Friday. We’re still looking for one or two others and we’re making progress on that front as well.
“It sends out a really powerful statement that he’s prepared to leave England’s champions to come here.”
It has been a busy summer in the transfer market for Warburton as he has bolstered his Rangers ranks for a shot at the Premiership title this term. He handed starts to summer recruits Matt Gilks, Lee Hodson, Clint Hill, Niko Kranjcar and Josh Windass as goals in either half from Barrie McKay and Waghorn clinched a comfortable Betfred Cup win.
Forward Dodoo spurned the chance to say with Premier League champions Leicester to make the move north of the border and could make his debut against East Stirlingshire on Friday night.
“Joe is like Jordan Rossiter. He's young with great potential – an exciting talent, technically very strong, a good athlete and a good size,” Warburton said. “He will come in and be keen to make an impression and we're delighted to get him.
“We've got to strengthen the squad and add that quality. Getting the older players in like Joey Barton and Gilksy was fantastic. Now getting the younger ones like Josh, Matt, Jordan and now Joe is encouraging too.
“I think you saw tonight, there was 32,000 fans here. That's incredible backing. It's a magnificent football arena. The training ground is first class – it's a Premier League training ground – so the club has everything. What we have got to do is get the club back to where it was before but that won't be easy. All we can do is try and get better every day. If we do that we'll be there or there abouts.”
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