Mark Warburton happy with Rangers backing amid Mike Ashley battles

Mark Warburton believes Rangers have taken another step in the right direction after seeing off Mike Ashley's latest courtroom challenge and says he has received "excellent" backing from the club's board.

The ongoing feud between the Newcastle owner and Gers chairman Dave King took a fresh twist on Thursday when it emerged Ashley had abandoned legal action calling into question the Scottish Football Association's decision to clear King to run the Ibrox outfit.

King agreed to pay the South African taxman £43.7m to settle a long-running tax dispute three years ago and was cleared by the SFA to sit on the Rangers board last May after the governing body carried out an "unprecedented due diligence" process.

While both the Ibrox side and the SFA still hope the judge hearing the case will order Ashley to stump up for their legal costs, Warburton is just pleased to see another of the troublesome battles with the Sports Direct supremo ticked off.

"It's another side issue because it is above my pay grade, that's for sure. You always want the club to be on the back pages not the front pages and that's the important thing," he said. "If that's another one gone then all well and good.

"It's about putting Rangers on the back pages and being really positive in the message on what the team achieves.  If we can do that more often, we'll be in a good place."

Asked if he was satisfied with the backing he had received from the chairman and his fellow directors, Warburton said: "It's been excellent. We came in last summer and had to recruit a number of players really quickly.

"We got that backing to bring in the likes of James Tavernier, Martyn Waghorn, Andy Halliday, Jason Holt, Rob Kiernan, Wes Foderingham and all the names you know. Outstanding. We got their support to move quickly and we had to move quickly to get them in.

"The communication lines are really important. They are clear. Every day we speak two or three times to [managing director] Stewart Robertson and [director of finance and administration] Andrew Dickson. As long as we maintain that we'll be okay.

"Last June the same questions were asked. Will we get the players in? Then again in the January window. Will you recruit? Will you have the money?

"But so far we are in a good place. We've achieved the target of winning the league in a convincing manner, the Petrofac Training Cup was a nice bonus, we've had a very strong cup run and now we are in the Scottish Cup final so the club is in a good place right now.

"The board have delivered so far and they know how far we've got to go. If people think we're finished by getting back to the Premiership they are sadly mistaken. We have to keep pushing forward. The moment we stop being positive and pushing forward then we have a problem."

Rangers will finally bring the curtain down on their four-year trawl through the lower leagues on Sunday with their final Championship fixture of the campaign away to St Mirren.

The clash will also see striker Waghorn make his return to action following 10 weeks out with a knee injury and, after having to sit out the Scottish Cup semi-final triumph over Celtic and with the final against Hibs to come on May 21, he is determined not to miss out on any further glory.

"It's been tough," he said. "The boys won the league without me, the Petrofac Cup too and the semi-final against Celtic.

"The Celtic match would have been the biggest game of my career to date. But you just have to deal with it. I've been desperate to get back and I'm looking forward to Sunday."