Warburton backs Wallace to do a job for Scotland after standout display against Kilmarnock

Rangers boss Mark Warburton has told Gordon Strachan he should have no doubts about throwing Lee Wallace into next month's Wembley clash with England.

Published 29th Oct 2016

Rangers boss Mark Warburton has told Gordon Strachan he should have no doubts about throwing Lee Wallace into next month's Wembley clash with England.

The Ibrox skipper has jumped to the head of the queue for next month's World Cup qualifier after his rivals for Scotland's left-back slot Andy Robertson and Kieran Tierney were both ruled out through injury.

Alternatively, Strachan could turn Swansea's Stephen Kingsley or Blackburn utility man Charlie Mulgrew.

But after watching Wallace net the opener in Gers' 3-0 win over Kilmarnock, Warburton insists the Rangers captain would not let his country down in London.

He said: I have no doubts about Lee Wallace. He is a top-class professional and an outstanding captain of the club so never have any worries about Lee Wallace.''

Some Rangers fans have not been speaking about their manager with as much confidence as doubts over his leadership have grown in the wake of Sunday's defeat to Celtic in the Betfred Cup semi-final and the lifeless draw with St Johnstone on Wednesday.

But their biggest league win since beating Livingston back in January has fired Rangers up to second place and given Warburton some much-needed respite.

Wallace gave the hosts the opener after 16 minutes when he darted on to a sublime Josh Windass pass to beat Jamie MacDonald at his near post.

Andy Halliday then doubled the lead on 29 minutes after Stevie Smith tripped Jason Holt in the box, with Joe Garner's tap-in rounding off victory two minutes after the interval.

The first half especially was by far our best performance. It was a good 90 minutes' work,'' said the Englishman.

We wanted to be dynamic, we wanted to be positive in our decision-making and we got the early chances straight away.

Our intention was clear and we played a very pleasing first half. When we lost the ball, we reacted very quickly to get it back and win it high up the back and we created a host of chances.

We wanted to come out, get on the ball and score the next goal, which we did really early.

We just controlled the game from there. Maybe the tempo dipped a little bit in the second half, understandably against a very good Kilmarnock side who were high on confidence coming here. I thought it was a very good performance.

Kilmarnock boss Lee Clark was hoping to build on his team's impressive midweek win over Hearts.

Instead, they froze in much the same manner as they did when shipping six goals at Celtic Park last month. Clark, whose side now drop to eighth, said: It was disappointing and quite similar to Celtic in that we've been very passive in the game.

We thought we had an opportunity with the confidence levels of the players after their performance on Wednesday.

We wanted to keep the game tight as long as we could so the fans would become a little bit nervous. But we allowed Rangers to gain momentum. The crowd got behind them and that made it a very difficult afternoon for us.

Did it become an overwhelming occasion? It looks that way.

That is one of the solutions I need to find when we come back to this type of arena and places like Celtic. I don't know why because their fans at home have nothing to do with us - we've got to play our game. We've got to use that to our advantage.

I need to find a solution to try and take on these teams with the type of personnel I have on the pitch so we do not leave ourselves too open in the game.''