Friday 24 March 2017 08:06, UK
Rangers chairman Dave King has criticised the club's former manager Mark Warburton, suggesting he was too "thin-skinned" to handle the scrutiny of managing at Ibrox.
Warburton departed Rangers amid bizarre and acrimonious circumstances last month, along with assistant David Weir and Head of Recruitment Frank McParland, after Rangers claimed the three men tried to engineer moves to Nottingham Forest - and the trio have since been appointed to positions at the Midlands club.
King, who was in Glasgow for his first meeting with the new Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha, said he was disappointed at the manner of Warburton's exit from Ibrox, after some initial good work, and feels the Englishman's inability to handle Joey Barton was an indictment of his inexperience.
"Mark's temperament is different, as you know", King told Sky Sports News HQ. "It's not a criticism. He is a little bit thin-skinned.
"In an environment like Glasgow, having a thin skin is certainly not an advantage - particularly with the media.
"The media gives guys a pretty hard time, sometimes on facts, sometimes on vapour. It is a tough environment. When there is a lot going wrong on the park, the media is going to be all over you. You have to be up for that.
"I don't think it was a mistake (to give Warburton a new contract). I think he did a lot of good.
"If I look at what Pedro is inheriting in terms of the academy and the structures, I think Mark was very instrumental in putting that in place. So I think he did a lot of good. I just think the step up was very difficult for him this year."
Barton was Rangers' highest profile signing last summer, as he left Burnley - the club to which he's since returned - to sign a two-year contract at Ibrox.
A training ground row with Warburton three days after a 5-1 Old Firm defeat to Celtic in September destroyed the pair's relationship, and the midfielder was suspended by Rangers and forced to train with the youth team, before a severance deal was agreed in November.
"Some of his (Warburton's) player choices proved difficult for him as well", continued King. "Only Mark can really answer it, but I just think it got tough for him and he didn't see his future here.
"Was Joey Barton a high risk signing? Yes, he was.
"Was it something that exercised my mind and that of the board? Yes it was. We were aware of his background and history. We were told he had a young family and calmed down a little bit.
"The decision with Joey was one made in the full knowledge of the risks. In my view, he could have been a great signing. I watched him play for Burnley against Liverpool, he still looks like a decent player.
"But if you are going to have big signings with big personalities, you have to have the ability to manage them.
"Don't ask people's advice and if you get it, get shirty about it. That was a decision the manager had to make. It didn't work out.
"He's gone. It was an expensive exercise but I still don't think it was a bad decision. It cost the club a lot of money.
"We made a decision to back the manager with all of the risk. He said: 'Please, I need you to back me on this one. This guy will make a big, big, difference'."
King is yet to decide whether to seek compensation from Nottingham Forest or Warburton following the coaching team's departure from Glasgow, but says that what has happened since, he fully expected - and suggests any claim from the LMA on Warburton's behalf is worthless.
"I'd have been surprised if he didn't end up at Nottingham Forest," he said. "My disappointment is that the way it was managed resulted - as matters stand at the moment - in Rangers not getting compensation, which normally we'd have been entitled to, if the team had walked out, and we've had to pay compensation (to appoint a new manager).
"Once again we're on the wrong side of the cash-flow, through no fault of our own.
"I think there is no case. The case really is what Rangers now do. It certainly appears to me that what you've got now is an engineered outcome, to the benefit of Nottingham Forest.
"I was approached directly, when they were in negotiations with Forest, to ask if Rangers would waive compensation and that was first I was aware they were even talking to Forest.
"My response was that we would not waive the compensation because if the management team does walk out and we have to replace them, we might have to pay compensation.
"But I said I'd be flexible in how they paid the compensation. That was taken out of our hands with the whole resignation debacle and they've all ended up at Nottingham Forest without us getting compensation and we've had to pay compensation. That's exactly where I didn't want to be.
"Mark did very well for the club and the club did very well for him.
"Things were going well but I think it could have been handled a lot better. If Mark really felt he wanted to get away he could have had that conversation with me or Stewart or whoever he wanted to speak to.
"He could have said, 'Look, it's not working, I'm finding Glasgow very tough", and we could have planned the exit. We could have done it differently. But I don't think it should have happened in such a ramshackle manner.
"(Our relationship) changed a little bit towards the end because, quite frankly, I didn't appreciate some of the comments that I felt were getting into the media that were emanating from Mark. I wasn't as confident having a confidential conversation with him.
"He might have turned it around, he might have finished second (in the table). The season's not over yet.
"But the fact is it was a choice that was taken out of our hands. Am I distressed about it? No, I'm not distressed. I think we're better off now than we were two months ago."
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