Rangers caretaker boss Graeme Murty grateful for help from 'mentors'

Rangers interim manager Graeme Murty at training (SNS Group)

GRAEME MURTY admits he has found it invaluable to have a pool of mentors available to help him through his difficult spell as Rangers caretaker manager.

The 42-year-old revealed after Friday’s 2-1 defeat at Inverness that he had asked for and received assistance from the board but declined to name the source of his help.

“I wasn’t being disingenuous by the way, there isn’t a mysterious character in the background,” he said ahead of Wednesday’s Ladbrokes Premiership encounter with St Johnstone at Ibrox.

“There are a group of people who have been made accessible to me by the board for advice, mentorship, and they will remain private because it’s not down to me to reveal their names, because I don’t feel comfortable doing that and it’s not right for me to do so.

“But at any stage I want to pick the phone up then that’s been made available to me.”

The club’s under-20s coach was thrust into the limelight by the shock departures of Mark Warburton and David Weir and results have not made his short-term task any easier.

He led Rangers into the William Hill Scottish Cup quarter-finals less than 48 hours after discovering late one Friday night that he had been put in charge of the team.

But Rangers have since lost to Dundee and Caley Thistle and Murty is taking advice to ensure he can help the team, although the assistance is not actually on the training field.

“It’s for me, to make sure I’m being taken care of, so that I can do the job to the best of my ability, and not worry about anything extraneous to the job, which as a conscientious person you look at all angles,” the former Scotland full-back said.

“There can be a time when you look at it too much and you have to strip it back to what you can affect and what the players need. So that’s been really beneficial to me.

“It was quite difficult the other day but conversations took place to look at positives and make sure I was in the right frame of mind to come in and work, so that the players were in the right frame of mind.

“Once again, I reiterate, it’s not about me. It’s making sure that when I step on to the football field, I give the players what they need.”