Confused Mark Warburton won’t commit to winning next season’s Premiership title.
Tonight the former city trader is hoping to watch Sevco clinch the Championship title giving him four months to prepare to mix it with the giants of the Scottish game.
With Dave King finally poised to release his over-investment of £30m plus, Warbs is expected to invest heavily in top talent from the depths of the English game to finally deliver on Charles Green’s promise of bringing Champions League football to Ibrox.
Despite those riches, and having already snapped up Josh Crooks and Walter Windass from Accrington Stanley, cautious Warbs isn’t prepared to commit to winning next season’s Premiership title.
Looking to life in the top flight the former Brentford supremo said: “If you’re a football neutral and you look it and say that Celtic have had X years of European football – Champions League football – and the financial benefits and a squad packed with international players, the neutral will tell you that they will take some beating, absolutely.
“And it would be foolish to say otherwise – to go into a game as it currently stands, they have to be favourites.
“It would be totally ignorant to say anything other than that but our job is to close the gap. How well we close that gap will be about how competitive we are but Rangers will never go into that league satisfied with being third or fourth.”
The former city trader added: “My expectation is that we have to go into that league and be highly competitive. I view highly competitive as that we’ve got to be a very, very tough team to beat and to break down and that we go into games expecting to win them.
“I’m not going to sit here and say we’re not going to challenge for the league. I’m not going to sit here and say we’re going to win the league.
“I’d say that any Rangers team with David Weir, myself and the staff, will be highly competitive. And we will go in prepared well with a squad of players that I think will match that description.”
Warbs is expecting to release Nicky Law, Dean Shiels, Nicky Clark, Harry Forrester, Billy King, Dom Ball, Gedion Zelalem and Henry Templeton from his Championship winning squad after they collect their Championship bonus.
Since their unaudited accounts to 31 December 2015, which included a going concern warning and debts of £9.5m, Sevco have been forced to repay Sports Direct £5m with two more paydays before they start to collect season ticket money.
It’s expected that the Ibrox season ticket pitch will be to fund Warbo’s Champions League bid rather than to pay off the loans that have allowed the club to complete the current campaign.
