Mark Warburton has 90 minutes to salvage his reputation as Sevco manager.
That is the blunt warning from Paul Murray’s favourite newspaper, the Daily Record.
If Warbo’s side fail to beat Morton next Sunday Warbo will be sent on gardening leave because the club can’t afford to pay off his contract which runs until June 2019.
Tensions have been high between Warburton and Dave King since the club AGM in November when the South African based criminal demanded second place and European football from the second biggest budget in the country.
Over the last fortnight the tone of the Record’s coverage has grown more confrontational with recent results doing Warbo, who used to work as a city trader, no favours.
Aberdeen can go three points ahead of Sevco by beating Motherwell on Wednesday night with a March 12 visit to Celtic Park one for Warbo to dread.
Ten months ago the magic hat could do no wrong after beating Celtic on penalties to reach the final of the Scottish Cup but it’s been downhill ever since for everyone at Ibrox.
That was to be the high watermark for the former Brentford boss as Keith Jackson in the Record explains: “It was at that very moment that Warburton’s relationship with his own board began to turn cold.
“Chairman Dave King and one or two of his fellow directors appeared almost resentful of the manager’s soaring popularity among the club’s supporters. It was almost as if, having restored order behind the scenes at the club, some of the inflated egos inside that boardroom believed they were more deserving of the adulation and respect which Warburton was being afforded by the club’s supporters.
“And especially so when they felt strong armed into doubling his wages later that summer, in the knowledge they might be hounded out of office had they refused.
“The truth of the matter is King was forced into fulfilling a promise he made to his manager and he did so through tightly gritted teeth. But it meant that Warburton and his bosses were on uneasy terms before a ball had even been kicked in this season’s top-flight campaign.”
Jackson added: “Warburton’s scatter-gun recruitment policy over the summer and subsequent failure to find a consistent winning formula on the field of play have combined to weaken his position and further deteriorate those internal relationships.
“Rock bottom arrived 10 days ago when Warburton attended a board meeting and found himself at the centre of a fairly brutal, ill-tempered ambush of an appraisal.
“When he went to Tynecastle last Wednesday, what he needed was for his players to lay down a marker. What he got from them was a malaise.”
Rock bottom wasn’t Tynecastle, rock bottom is still to come for last season’s magic hat.
