MARK WARBURTON is pleased Dave King has lofty ambitions for Rangers after the Ibrox chairman claimed the Light Blues could challenge for the Premiership title next term.

Rangers have won their first nine games on Warburton’s watch and are five points clear at the top of the Championship standings.

King claimed this week that the Gers are on course to be equipped to battle Old Firm rivals Celtic for the top flight crown next season.

And Warburton has no problem with the Ibrox chief setting high targets for him and his players in the coming months.

He said: "It's great to hear the support from the chairman and the optimistic, aggressive desire of the owner.

“From our point of view, we would need to add some quality to the squad to mount that type of campaign next year.

“We are not naive, we are very aware of the strengths of an Aberdeen or a Celtic and these guys because they have been playing European football and have budgeted accordingly.

“But I look at our team now and I think we have a number of players who can more than compete at the next level and they are young.

“Our keeper is 23, our right back is 23, our two centre halves are 23, Lee Wallace has just turned 28, but he is captain, Andy Halliday, 23. We have loan players at 18, 19, Barrie McKay is 20, Martyn Waghorn is 25.

“We are a young team, a really young team. They are hungry, they will get better, they are only 12 or 13 weeks into the season so they will improve, that's our job to keep pushing them and working with them.

“So I don't think we are far away. I think we need three or four players and we will use the loan market again, so that might make it five or six players in total, but the fact is I don't think we are that far away."

Warburton has transformed Rangers’ fortunes on the park since being handed the Ibrox reigns alongside David Weir this summer.

And the former City trader is confident his newly assembled squad can live up to the expectations of King and the Light Blue legions.

He said: “This is where we are so the ambitions have got to be aggressive. Our targets have got to be aggressive.

“They’ve got to be realistic, but they’ve got to be aggressive. The players have got to thrive off that.

“We talk a lot about responsibility. If they crumble under that then they shouldn’t be here. But that does with any job.

“As journalists if you cannot handle deadlines then don’t do the job.

“People say the pressure is peculiar to football. No it’s not.

“In my old industry you had targets to hit. If you couldn’t deal with the pressure then you got out of it.

“We have got boys here to relish that, they enjoy it. They love running out in front of 50,000 even though they know there is an expectation they need to deal with.

“We have no doubt they have the character and the quality to deal with it.”

Warburton has spent recent days in King’s company after the businessmen flew in from South Africa for a board meeting.

And he has been impressed with the chairman’s vision for the future at Ibrox.

Warburton said: “I really enjoyed our conversations. All I can say is that we have a chairman who is really positive about the club and very confident about where the club can go.

“He has given us all the support we need.

“That is all you want as a manager or coach. We came to Rangers with some clear ideas in mind and we moved quickly in terms of the players we brought in.

“We knew what we wanted, knew they were available and knew we had to act quickly or we’d lose them to clubs down south.

“But we got the support and we got the players. Touch wood they’ve all gone well so far.”