MARK WARBURTON turned down a last minute plea from Martyn Waghorn to pitch him into the Old Firm battle at Hampden on Sunday.

The striker has been out of action for several weeks after suffering a knee injury in the Scottish Cup win at Kilmarnock and was eager to face Celtic in the last four at Hampden.

Former Gers boss Stuart McCall told SportTimes on Friday that it would be worth the risk to play Waghorn from the bench if he was medically fit enough to feature.

Warburton will not turn to his 28-goal star for the derby duel but he could feature in Light Blue before the end of the campaign.

Warburton said: “Waghorn is not fit. He’s not far away, he’ll start training with us next week, so he will hopefully be available for Alloa. But he won’t be involved in the semi-final.

“He hasn’t trained. This is the amazing thing for me – I’m reading stuff about bringing him off the bench.

“But he hasn’t trained, he’s not fit to play yet, he hasn’t trained for seven weeks. People are asking me the same question, but the boy is not fit to play.

“He knocked on my door this morning and asked, ‘any chance?’ He is desperate to play.

“But just imagine if you haven’t trained for seven weeks. As I say, he’s just not ready yet, and he knows it.

“But it is a great attitude from Waggy, and when he is fit and well, he knows I’ll use him.

“He came to see me with a big grin on his face, knowing that it was a lost cause. He’s a top pro who wants to play but unfortunately this game has come 10 days too early for him.”

Warburton faces a selection dilemma after Harry Forrester was also ruled out of the Hampden showdown after suffering a leg fracture against Peterhead.

Michael O’Halloran and Billy King and both cup-tied so Warburton will have to shuffle his pack as he looks to clinch a debut derby win and final berth.

He said: “It affects us because Harry is a talented player who has done very well. I’m disappointed for him, because he was desperate to play in the game.

“But we’ve got a strong squad – it’s a tight squad – but a strong squad, and we’ve got replacements, so we’ll be fine.

“It will mean a bit of juggling required by us. If you look at our injuries and such, we’ve lost Billy and Michael, both wide players, and now we lose Harry, who is also a wide player.

“And all three of them can play left or right. So we are losing width and balance in that respect, but we have other players who offer different qualities. We’ll look at the squad, and we’ll be okay.”