Mark Warburton is back in Scotland, and in the papers again. Moaning.
What’s changed here?
Those of us who’ve maintained that he’s not happy at Ibrox are right on the money, but he’s clearly not happy in this country as a whole.
He’s done nothing but bitch about it since he got here.
Today’s issue is about the re-constituted League Cup. He thinks the club will face too many games in that competition. He’s got some brass neck. We’re playing not only a series of pre-season friendlies but European qualifiers on top of them. If his point is that we’re better placed to handle that than they are he’s right, but he doesn’t need me to tell him what the problem there is, as I’m sure he already knows.
He’s moaning at the wrong people. In his typical fashion he’s firing a blunderbuss at a fly, not caring that the fragments are going everywhere. His actual target is the board of directors at his own club, who’ve lied through their teeth.
During the cup semi final and the final that followed it, he selected only five subs in a very clear message to his own board that he didn’t have enough players in the first team squad. He has even less now and the standard of all of his signings is questionable, as I will discuss in a larger piece for Fields later today.
The simple truth is that his squad is painfully weak and he knows it. When he talks about playing too many games he does so because he knows he doesn’t have the depth to handle a long run of fixtures. This isn’t Scottish football’s fault; the demands on his are no more unreasonable than those being made on the other clubs.
His gripe is with the people who are depriving him of the assets he was promised.
He better brace himself for what’s coming because the expectations of his supporters are wholly insane and unrealistic and they believe that he is behind the signing policy. Yet his actions – he has missed the “unveiling” of the last two players – suggest that’s he uncomfortable with it, at best.
Trying to tell their fans this is like trying to tell a Brexit voter that they’ve made a mistake, even with all the economic chickens coming home to roost, both major parties in turmoil, the UK on the brink of political collapse and Farage and others already admitting they essentially lied during the campaign.
Some people just don’t get it because they don’t want to.
Mark Warburton is not a stupid man. He has a background in the City of London; he’s clearly not a mug. His is a career in football that’s just getting started and if Neil Lennon, who won titles and beat Barcelona, couldn’t land a top job in England he must wonder if he’s taken a turn down a blind alley.
With the media telling everyone his team will challenge for the title he knows the price of failing to do so.
I understand why he’s moaning, but he’s moaning at the wrong folks.
He ought to keep it shut or save the complaints for those – inside Ibrox – who deserve them.