In among all the gushing praise (and that is just this site!) fans have been lavishing upon Mark Warburton and his Rangers Revolution, a small fact has barely been mentioned.
It is one of the most critical aspects of Warburton’s signing policy, and a key component of the ‘communication’ Warburton espouses with such extreme importance as to the fortunes of the Club:
His entire squad is British.
With the exception of German-born American midfielder Gedion Zelalem (and Brits have never truly seen Americans as ‘foreign’ in the way continental Europeans are), every single member of Mark Warburton’s tight-knit group is either Northern Irish, Scottish or English.
This is not anti-European continental xenophobia, far from it: in order to hit the ground running, Warburton evidently decided to make all new additions home-based, to allow more seamless integration and the lack of need to learn a new language and culture.
The core of Rangers’ first team is English and Scottish – the entire defence is English or Scottish, as with attack. The only exception, as mentioned, is our good friend from over the pond in Zelalem, whose English is completely impeccable – not surprising as he has lived in USA since he was 8.
Presumably next season (assuming promotion) Warburton may dabble in some slightly ‘pricier’ models from over the channel and beyond, with the core group already being fully blended and gelled – but for now his entire squad is British.
This hugely accounts for successful communication on the pitch, and the evident understanding players are cultivating with each other.
And the results justify this decision.
I thought I saw a republic of smellyland flag next to keirnan if he is an Ulsterman why is he not playing for northern Ireland?i
Don't fall into the trap.
Ireland is cool. Plastic Paddy's from the East End trying to hijack it isn't.
The tricolour is not synonymous with Celtic.
Robbie is an Englishman, he plays international for ROI.
It shall be interesting to see who he aquiers next season in the transfer market…
He built an English Championship level squad. British or not they are solid and combative and remind me of a robust English Championship squad. The next step is the measurable one as I believe the true intention of King will play out in January, by then WarBs will see exactly what holes to fill and add some real quality to take is to the next level ready for next season. To be fair to the current squad tey are responding to this place threat very well and are proably good enough to compete next season. Cant wait to play Celtic, sooner the better.
Don't need shit comments like that . The guys giving his all for Rangers and that's enough .
Just remember the English players we had in past years done us proud WATP.
Truly the only quintessential British club,I don't think we need to look abroad for players more than enough quality in Britain and with Warburton willing to play younger guy's we should be able to attract better quality youngsters.My hope would be for Warburton to stay long enough to achieve at Rangers what Ferguson done at Man Utd
I was at the St Johnstone Rangers match back in 2000, Rangers were the first team in the UK to field an entire non british eleven (Arsenal argue they were first, although its nothing to be proud of) subsequently we lost 2-1 that day.
My greatest memories revolve around Mols, Amoruso, Laudrup, Weiss, Albertz, Klos, Numan, Bronkhorst, Prso etc etc etc…. so I'm all for signing excellent foreign players for the first team but I don't want to see the bench and reserves full of average foreigners, this is where I'd like to see our youth policy coming into effect.
Mentioned this before but we need an affiliate club either in the English League 1 or 2 or Scottish Championship so we can send 2 or 3 young lads at a time… this way the lads feel together and there's something structured about our loaning out policy
Presumably you're talking the October 2000 game where Miller scored. Yea – I'm pretty certain he's not foreign!!
Arsenal WERE the first team to field all foreigners. You forget in 1999 we bought Billy Dodds!!
Plus we had Fergy, McCann – loads!!
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/984881.stm
Comments are closed.