GRAEME Murty has admitted he would be prepared to manage Rangers until the end of the season if the Ibrox board ask him to remain in charge.
Murty will be in the dugout once again for the Ladbrokes Premiership match against Hamilton today - more than three weeks after he took over the running of the first team over on an interim basis for the second time this year.
The Glasgow club, who earlier this month announced they had made a £6.7 million loss in the last financial year, have still not appointed a permanent replacement for Pedro Caixinha.
Rangers announced last week they had been inundated with applications for the vacant post but had not interviewed any potential candidate.
However, former Scotland internationalist Murty, whose side have beaten Hearts away and Partick Thistle at home since he took over and are bidding to win three games in a row for the first time since December, stressed yesterday that he was enjoying the role and would be happy to continue doing it until the end of the 2017/18 campaign.
Asked what he would say if Rangers asked him to stay in charge of the first team until the summer, he said: “I would agree straight away. If they said to me ‘would you take the team to the end of the season?’ I would say yes.
“But if they say tomorrow ‘we’ve got a new guy coming in on Monday’ then fine. I’m an employee of Rangers Football Club and whatever my role is will be dictated by someone on a much higher pay grade than mine, so I’m relaxed with that. I’ll just go and do as good a job as I can wherever I am.”
Asked if he was better placed to manage Rangers than when he first took over after Mark Warburton departed back in February, Murty said: “Definitely. I’ve learned lots more. I’ve learned how to deal with international-standard foreign players.
“The more I do the more confident I become that I can do it. The more confident I am that I can impact first team players. I have to say the feedback I’ve had from the players has been great.
“The more I do it with those guys and the more feedback I get from them, the more content I am that the stuff I give them is benefitting them. That’s what the job as a coach and a manager is about. It’s about impacting the players in a positive manner. I think I’ve managed to do that.
“The support staff in this building are as good as I’ve worked with so they’ve taken a great deal of weight off me and made my job even easier, so they deserve a lot of praise.”
Meanwhile, Murty has revealed the ankle injury which Graham Dorrans suffered in the 1-1 draw against Kilmarnock last month was not as bad as first feared and will not require surgery.
“Graham had a scan and a consultation with a specialist in London,” he said. “He won’t need an invasive technique on his ankle which is good. He doesn’t need surgery.
“He’ll progress with his rehab now and hopefully that means he’ll be back quicker than he would have been had he needed surgery which is great.
“I don’t have a definitive time-scale. That’s still quite fluid but not needing surgery is a fantastic step.”
Meanwhile, Murty admitted he was in dialogue with Allen about the make-up of the squad ahead of the January transfer window.
“All of us together – myself, Mark, JJ (Jonatan Johansson), Colin (Stewart) – talk about the squad,” he said. “As with any football club, that process will be ongoing regardless of where you are with regard to the window.”
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