Gordon Smith: Success in Scotland can earn Mark Warburton a big job down south

MARK WARBURTON has to focus on the prize as Scottish football’s panto season cranks into full swing.

The previously easy-going Rangers boss lost his cool during the week after being continuously linked with a move to Fulham.

The logic behind the story, generated from England, is simple.

It is well known he left Brentford over a disagreement with the owner about the extent to which the club should go down the Moneyball route, where statistics determine recruitment.

He has done well since moving north but surely, the argument goes, he’d want to grab the first decent, available job in the south-east of England.

However, it ignores one important line of reasoning that in moving to Rangers, Warburton showed he had ambition and the vision to see not only where the club was just now but where it can be in the future.

The remit he was presented with was, I believe, three-fold:

1 To get the club out of the Scottish Championship;

2 To be competitive in the top half of the Premiership and in the cup competitions in their first season back at the top;

3 To thereafter be challenging Celtic for the title.

Those targets are, I would contend, all achievable but they are also plenty to be getting on with.

It might sound odd, but I actually believe the first step to be the most difficult of the three.

We saw last season how tough life can be in the second flight when Rangers’ bid to get up ended in defeat to Motherwell in the Championship play-off final.

While they still lead the division heading into the festive season, the emergence of Hibs as a force to be reckoned with means automatic promotion isn’t guaranteed.

Hearts, thanks to their success last season, were the model Rangers have tried to follow in terms of how best to mount a title push.

And should they succeed, the Edinburgh club have shown the way on how to hit the ground running on the step up to the Premiership.

Thanks to sensible planning and recruitment on and off the pitch plus the enthusiastic backing of their supporters, Robbie Neilson’s side have effortlessly reclaimed their position in the top four of the division.

I see no reason why Warburton wouldn’t be able to emulate his feat.

There will be followers of Celtic, and possibly some of Rangers, who view the last stage of the plan as overly ambitious.

When Rangers first embarked on their journey up the leagues at the start of the 2012-13 campaign, there were predictions the Hoops would have consolidated to such an extent by the time they got back they would be effectively untouchable.

Yet while there was no question there was a gulf in class when the teams met in the League Cup semi-final in February, the Celts’ European struggles this season have shown them to be far from the finished article.

Prove himself as the man capable of exploiting their weaknesses and Warburton will have not only earned himself the gratitude of the Rangers support but also a future shot at one of the bigger jobs down south.

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