Mark Warburton’s Rangers spell didn’t end how everyone thought it would, but how would he have done nowadays?
By nowadays, we’re talking about the increase in budget that Steven Gerrard has been given. The current Gers manager spent over £9million on his squad over the summer. In contrast to previous seasons, it trumps anything previous managers have spent.
The only manager who had a similar budget was Pedro Caixinha, who totally wasted the club’s money on dreadful acquisitions. Yet, you have to wonder how well Warburton could’ve done with similar funds.
After all, when he arrived at the start of the 2015/16 season, nine out of the 14 signings he brought to the club were free transfers or loan deals. The club signed James Tavernier and Martyn Waghorn for undisclosed fees, whilst around £350k was splashed out on Jason Holt and Rob Kiernan respectively.
Gerrard’s budget now is at least nine times that of what Warburton spent over that first summer. The Rangers gaffer is also set to splash the cash once more in January to bring in four new bodies.
A lack of funding
Even when Warburton was promoted to the Premiership, he still had to buy on the cheap. 12 out of Warburton’s 14 signings over that year were free transfers also. Only Joe Garner and Jak Alnwick commanded a fee.
All things considered, you have to say that Warburton did extremely well in powering through the lower league and solidifying Rangers as competitive in the top division. Nobody knows whether the former Brentford coach would’ve finished second. He left the club in infamous circumstances in February 2017.
There was a stubbornness from the Rangers manager that extremely frustrated the supporters. His determination not to switch from a flailing 4-3-3 system was costing Rangers results.
He was far from perfect, but he barely had a budget with which to work from. Compare that to the job Gerrard has done on a lot more money, you couldn’t blame Warburton for cursing his luck.
These days, the Englishman is out of work after leaving Nottingham Forest. Forest were the club he went to immediately after leaving Rangers, but he couldn’t improve their fortunes.
Seeing the budget Gerrard now has at Ibrox, however, must frustrate the former boss whenever he thinks about the restrictions he once had.
