Rangers boss Mark Warburton must act fast to bulld a squad, says Gordon Smith

Former Scottish Football Association chief executive Gordon Smith says new Rangers boss Mark Warburton may have to look at free agents to build a squad at Ibrox.

Smith, who also had a spell as director of football at Ibrox in 2011, is unsure how much funding will be available to Warburton following his appointment as manager of the Scottish Championship outfit on Monday.

Ibrox chairman Dave King has yet to say how much money is available to the former Brentford boss as he awaits to see the take-up in season ticket sales.

Supporters are also awaiting the result of a vote from last week’s general meeting on whether shareholders have voted in favour of repaying a £5m loan to shareholder Mike Ashley's MASH Holdings.

Ashley has requested the debt be settled to allow Rangers to reclaim the rights to Intellectual Properties, the training ground and a car park which is required for access to part of the stadium. It would also allow the club to use Ibrox as security to raise finance, and a better percentage of a retail deal with Sports Direct

Speaking to Sky Sports News HQ, Smith said: “It just depends where the money comes from, whether there is going to be more investment from the people who have taken over the club, obviously the sale of season tickets will help greatly if the club manage to sell and get back to the numbers round about the 40,000 mark that they have sold in previous years

'Experienced'

“There could be some money available for him then, but he does have to bring in players there is no question about that as most people know Rangers let quite a few experienced senior players go at the end of the season.

"They lost about 11 players, players who were round about the first team, and not only playing but round about the squad, so he does have to replace them.

“He has to prioritise right throughout the team. I think what he’s looking for will be some experienced players who can actually fill in the role and give advice and help and run the team. So you’re looking at your core of your team through the centre-back positions, centre midfield and striker, and then you’re looking to bring in good young players.

“He will have a problem because at this stage of the season he’ll be looking at the players who are obviously on a Bosman who are free agents, but a lot of the good ones will be picked up already, will have already done their deals, so he really has to look for people who are out of contract in order to fill some of the positions.

"He may have to look at a few loan deals, and he was quite successful when he did that before at Brentford, he brought in some players from bigger clubs on loans, so he may have to go down that road too.”

Smith believes Warburton, who has been joined by assistant David Weir at Rangers, is a brave step for the club.

Obviously they’ve done their due diligence on him and seen what he’s achieved before in terms of the accomplishments he’s had when he worked at Brentford.

'Due dilligence'

The former Brentford management team will be hoping to add silverware to the plaudits they received for gaining promotion from League One and taking the Griffin Park side to last season’s Sky Bet Championship play-offs.

Smith said: “Obviously they’ve done their due diligence on him and seen what he’s achieved before in terms of the accomplishments he’s had when he worked at Brentford.

"He’s been in various roles as well, he’s been taking youth teams, he’s been a director of football, and then he became a manager. David Weir was someone who also came through late, he was over in America doing his education, came back to the game quite late in Scotland, so he’s an intelligent fellow too.

“But he’s been a great success in his career, even playing to quite an advanced age in the game and he did so at Rangers and he was a captain. So he knows the set up very well.

“This will be a bit of a change taking over in a lower division when they are having to play in the Championship next year, but the main thing is he knows what the fans would want to see, and I think that is a major aspect when you have Mark Warburton, who hasn’t been up here before.

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“The realistic targets are definitely building a team again, playing a style of football that the fans are going to enjoy and then the target has got to be promotion, not just that, I think the target would have to be winning the division.

“That’s going to be tough because he’s going to have to build the team and it’s not easy to try and build a team as quickly and in a short space that he has to do it because there is only weeks to they are back training and then the season starts very soon after that.