After reading the article by Nineteen-SeventyTwo about our manager and why it's time for him to leave, I thought I'd offer an alternative viewpoint for those of us with a differing opinion.
The main question I think that needs to be asked is, "Who exactly is at fault here, Mark Warburton or Dave King?"
Whilst I do agree with certain aspects of the above mentioned article, I am of the opinion that Mark Warburton should remain as the manager of Rangers Football Club. The reasons why I think this differ depending on the line of question being asked but it all boils down to one main point, Mark Warburton plays a style of football that Rangers fans, far and wide, have been screaming out for for years.
Not since the days of The Little General and his Oranje Army have we seen attacking football played with purpose at Ibrox or away but we came close to getting on the right path last season in the Scottish Championship, albeit against a lesser quality of opponent for the most part. Warburton knows how to set an attack minded team up and get results along the way, you only have to look at his time with Brentford where he took the club to the brink of the riches and promised land of the Premiership to confirm this.
During his time with Brentford, Warburton took the club from 3rd place in League 1 to a club record high 5th place finish in the Championship, arguably the most competitive league in English football, and then on to the Premiership Play Off Semi Final where they lost out to eventual runners up Middlesbrough. Along the way he racked up countless Manager of The Month nominations and gained the record of the highest percentage of wins in Brentford's history, not to mention securing over £30 million profit in transfer fees from signings he had made. Not bad for a man who entered into the professional footballing world later than most.
Now, you could argue that this has nothing to do with being the manager of Rangers Football Club and in most cases I would agree, but, all of the above proves that he can play good football AND be successful at a higher level of football than the Scottish Premiership so he can't have suddenly become a bad manager in the space of 18 months. The reason I believe Warburton had the success he had at Brentford is mainly down to his relationship with the board at Brentford who trusted his methods and his signing targets and backed him to the hilt which eventually worked out in their favour both financially and in stability for the club. This is something which I don't think he has at Rangers.
This is where I feel Dave King, Paul Murray and John Gilligan have to take the blame for what is going on at the present moment. Lets bypass the '£30M investment' comment from King for a moment as I'll come back to that later and, anyway, any fan with an ounce of knowledge about Mr King will know that this was never going to happen. When Mark Warburton took over as manager of Rangers, he had to sign 11 players to get us ready for a must win league campaign but with such little money being pumped into the club, he spent just £685K and relied on his network from his NexGen venture to secure 6 free transfers and 3 loan signings in order to win us the league. Now, when Dave King was announced as the new man at the helm, he said that we would overspend to ensure we would firstly, win the Scottish Championship and secondly, compete in the Scottish Premiership. Ok, so, £685K DID win us the league that season but we also lost out on a major trophy in the Scottish Cup and entry into the riches of Europe whilst holding an appalling record against our main title rivals. Something which I feel would have been avoided had Warburton been given money to buy in better quality for the long term but I feel, looking back on it, he had planned to win the Scottish Championship title as that was the size of the budget for the task he was given to do.
The same has happened this season where we have spent just under £2.5M, a sum which in no way could win the Scottish Premiership at the first time of asking, never mind set you up to compete for it. So, again, this leads me to believe that the budget was set to gain 2nd place. Now, that's the '£30M investment' comment, the 'overspend to win the league' comment and also the fact that only 1/10th of the figure continually mentioned by Dave King during his first interview as the man pulling the strings has actually been spent over 2 season in 4 transfer windows tells me that the blame should be laying at his doormat. A good manager will always look to strengthen his squad, preferably permanently and just like what Mark Warburton done at Brentford, so why he hasn't done so isn't because he thinks the players we have are good enough but because he isn't being backed financially to do so. Lets face it, if Mark Warburton felt the players he had were good enough then he wouldn't have signed Jon Toral and Emerson Hyndman and flung them both straight into the starting line up!
There have also been constant rumours about Warburton's position at the club and whilst I don't want to turn this into a 'he said, she said' piece, you need to wonder why that is, especially when it's open knowledge that Mark Warburton and Davie Weir were not at the top of Dave King's list of managerial candidates along with the fans being asked to 'build bridges' with the 'courageous journalism' at the Daily Record. That last part is purely my personal opinion, but it makes you wonder.
Finally, I'll end my thoughts with a question which will hopefully, when answered by yourself, make the minds up of the people sitting on the fence.
Does a good manager become a bad manager overnight or does a known penniless liar suddenly become a truthful millionaire? In the end, only one will prevail. It can be our decision to who that is if we make a stand of defiance and change our fortunes.