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Warburton: We’d be breathing down on Celtic this season if I had stayed at Ibrox

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Mark Warburton has claimed that he’d have a team breathing down Celtic’s neck if he was in charge at Ibrox this season.

Three seasons ago the former city trader was in his second season in Scottish football squaring up to a revived Celtic side led by Brendan Rodgers on it’s way to an invincible treble.

As well as sweeping up all three trophies the hoops reached the group stage of the Champions League with just eight points dropped as the SPFL title became a procession.

After hyping up the pre-season Ibrox challenge a 5-1 derby day defeat exposed the myth of Joey Barton in a defeat that Warburton never recovered from.

Two further derby defeats, at Hampden and Ibrox left Warbo treading water with the axe falling as they trailed Celtic by 17 points.

The precise nature of his departure has never been fully explored with the club stating that the former Brentford boss resigned, a claim that Warbo denies to this day.

Speaking to Si Ferry on Open Goal the former Ibrox boss said: “No contact with any club at the time, I found out via Sky Sports news.

“I still get the derogatory tweets coming through ‘you snake this’ and ‘you snake that’. I’m sorry boys you’ve got it completely wrong, you would never walk away from Rangers.

“We were second in the table, won promotion the year before, got to the cup final and won the Petrofac (Cup). So if it’s a school report we’re doing alright.

“But the gap to Celtic dominated every meeting, every telephone conversation. Celtic were having a stellar year. Now this year, we’d probably be three or four points behind them.”

A month after leaving Ibrox Warburton took over as manager of Nottingham Forrest with Davie Weir appointed as his assistant. After 27 games in charge he was sacked in December 2017 and hasn’t been back in management since.

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