Mark Warburton took a not-so-subtle swipe at Dave King yesterday after his side’s fortunate 2-1 win over Thistle in a match so bad that I would sooner gargle liquid drain cleaner than be forced to sit through it again.
Today the two best teams in Scotland play in a major final at Hampden.
Yesterday’s game was a public park match, all kick and rush, where a substitute came on and took advantage of tired legs. Forget what you’ve heard about Dodoo being clinical and the manager being some kind of genius. It didn’t happen that way at all.
In the aftermath of the game, Warburton was asked to comment on his chairman’s view that the first part of the season has been a bit of a disaster. He was having none of it. He pointed to their being second in the league, as if to say “What more does he want?”
Warburton knows full well what King wants, and what King expects. That the club with the second biggest wage bill in the country puts in performances that justify it. That they don’t find themselves facing a double –digit deficit in the league race before Christmas. They’ve won a slew of games this year in the last minute – and more on that later, I assure you – and their performances have been abject if I’m being generous to them.
King has expressed his dissatisfaction, and you know what? This time I understand where he’s coming from exactly, and if Warburton doesn’t he’s making his end at Ibrox even more acrimonious than it was already going to be. His next three games are Hearts, Aberdeen and Hearts again, and before we get to Ibrox at the end of December he’s also got to face Hamilton, Inverness and St Johnstone. He’s now set these up as must win matches – all of them.
As a guy who enjoys a bet, I can tell you right now that I wouldn’t money on them winning any game at the moment in the SPL. They are all over the place. That they’ve struggled to last minute winners against Dundee and Thistle in their last two games is revealing in itself. They are a shambles from top to bottom, and the manager doesn’t see things the way the fans in the stands do, and sure as Hell not the way the guys above him in the boardroom are thinking.
And you can see, clearly, where this is headed already.
Warburton’s disconnection between what the supporters and the chairman – wrapped in their wee bubble that this is still Rangers, that the name is all that matters – see and expect will be judged as the mark of a man who “doesn’t get” the club, paving the way, when he’s sacked, for a Real Rangers Man to come in at the helm, someone who does think second place is unworthy of them and is willing to spend every penny they don‘t have to do better.
Warburton has changed in the last two years. He’s becoming prickly, easily agitated and self-absorbed. His chairman is exactly the same, and King is a bombastic arse even when he’s clearly, plainly, in the wrong. This time he’s not.
Warburton is already a dead man walking.
It’s just a matter of time.