MARK WARBURTON insists he was always confident of landing top transfer target Michael O’Halloran after completing a deadline day move for the St Johnstone star.

Rangers saw two bids for O’Halloran turned down earlier this month but Warburton got his man with time to spare yesterday as the forward put pen-to-paper on a deal until 2020.

The capture of O’Halloran rounded off a productive window for Warburton as he has strengthened his squad for the remainder of the Championship campaign and what he hopes will be a return to the top flight next term.

The 25-year-old shone at Ibrox as St Johnstone knocked the Gers out of the League Cup in October and Warburton is delighted to have finally added O’Halloran to his Ibrox ranks.

He said: “He brings a bit of maturity. I know at 24 or 25 that sounds absurd but we’re a young team.

“He’s got Premier League experience, pace and physicality. He’s a rapid player. We use our wide players sensibly and he can play wide right, wide left, eight, ten and nine as well.

“He gives us a flexibility we wanted. We were after that.

“All sorts of players were offered to us but it was important we got that kind of flexibility.

“We signed a player for Brentford a few years ago, James Tarkowski, who was playing for Oldham and in our analysis we saw that their big threat came from him, carrying the ball from the back into midfield.

“When we did our analysis on St Johnstone, their threat came from the pace of O’Halloran, and he proved it on the night.

“We’ve watched him countless times since and he ticks our boxes in terms of being relatively young but with experience.

“He’s physically strong, quick and has an eye for a goal. We are delighted to get him on board.

“It was more drawn out than we expected, to be honest, but we got the player and it had to be value for the club and right for St Johnstone. We had to get into a good place, if not the deal breaks down.”

With O’Halloran now on board, Warburton will have to go with what he has got at his disposal as he looks to lead Rangers to the Championship crown this term.

The Englishman has overhauled his Light Blues squad during his first two transfer windows at Ibrox and Accrington Stanley pair Matt Crooks and Josh Windass will move north of the border in the summer.

And Warburton will now turn his attentions to brining in another handful of players to bolster his Rangers ranks once again.

Warburton said: “I’ve always said we wanted one or two in. Harry Forrester has come in and has come on in last couple of games and did well.

“Maciej (Gostomski) has come in for goalkeeper cover to push Cammy (Bell) and Wes (Foderingham) really hard.

“The Accrington boys are good business for the summer and we got the boys in we wanted.

“I’ve always said one or two. The chairman said he thinks we need five new players but he didn’t say in January.

“I absolutely agree with him and in the summer I will be looking to add at least another four to six players to the squad - but not in January. I would never, ever do that.

“The worst thing you can do is bring in too many in January - that’s far more damaging than not bringing in enough.

“If we were eight points behind and third or fourth in the league it would be different. We are seven months into a project and we lost 16 and brought in 11 players in the summer.

“We’ve got (Ryan) Hardie at 18, (Jordan) Thompson at 18, (Gedion) Zelalem just turned 19. Barrie McKay, who has played nearly every game just turned 21 in December.

“Seven months in, we are young and have been top of the league since day one. We are eight points clear, playing one more game, so we are not in bad shape.”