Nine days after watching his side crumble against Hibs in the final of the Scottish Cup, Mark Warburton has broken his media silence to speak to The Scottish Sun.
Having forced his opinion on everything from plastic pitches to Brendan Rodgers during 11 months in charge at Ibrox the former city trader fell silent after the Stokesy Cup Final.
While his employers went into overload on an extensive PR deflection campaign Warbo sidestepped the events at Hampden to lavish praise on star spotter Frank McParland.
Warbo has gone on record as wanting to have six new faces in place for the first day of pre-season training but will be without Joey Barton, on media duty at Euro 2016, while Accrington duo Josh Windass and Matt Crooks are contracted to the Lancastrian giants until June 30.
Touching on the Hampden defeat Warbs said: “It was a disappointing way to end the season. Hibs won and credit to them but we were 2-1 ahead and I felt we should’ve seen it out.
“Losing Dom Ball through suspension hurt us. We lost that physicality and height he brings. However, the big priority was to return to the Premiership and we managed that.”
Last week the Daily Record claimed that Warbo had been offered a new deal to double his basic salary ahead of his disappearing act.
With his current deal heavily incentivised towards bonus payments doubling his basic could effectively be a salary cut unless the Ibrox side win next season’s Premiership title.
Having ignored Paul Murray’s favourite newspaper and side stepped the new contract offer it looks like the hard up Ibrox money men will need to deliver in the transfer market if they are to retain the most highly rated young coach in the business.
