MARK WARBURTON won’t unleash his new Rangers recruits against Motherwell as he looks to mix and match his squad through the Betfred Cup campaign.

The Light Blues will have their first run-out of the season when they face Charleston Battery next week before they return to Glasgow from their training camp in America.

The trip to Fir Park on Saturday, July 16 is the first of four games Warburton’s side will play in nine days before they host Burnley and Hamilton Accies on successive weekends.

And the likes of Joey Barton, Niko Kranjcar and Jordan Rossiter are likely to miss out on the Steelmen showdown as Warburton puts plans in place for the Premiership.

He said: “The big concern is the League Cup. It’s one of the big tournaments with its history and tradition but we have players joining us on July 10 and then we’ve got a match on the 16th – and it’s a TV match.

“Our focus has to be the start of the league so everything has to be geared towards that and I’m hoping but the Burnley friendly on the 30th we should be able to play what we feel is our strongest starting 11.

“We’ve got four games in nine days and the biggest fear is injury.

“Joey will play in some of them but will he play on the 16th? Probably not. And it’s the same with Niko and Jordan.

“We will have different squads for the 16th, 19th and 25th and we will use a lot of the young boys too.

“I am conscious we have TV games, it’s the League Cup and we have supporters expecting to see our strongest side.

“But we have to use the squad. It will play, recover, quiet session for 10 days.”

After returning to training at Auchenhowie a fortnight ago, Rangers have been put through their paces in Charleston as preparations for the big kick-off continue.

It is only a few weeks since Rangers suffered heartache at Hampden as they threw away a lead and lost the Scottish Cup final against Hibernian.

The day will be remembered for all the wrong reasons following the pitch invasion at full-time that has sparked probes from Police Scotland and the Scottish FA.

But the disappointment of the 90 minutes that unfolded lingers with Warburton as he looks to ensure his side are in better shape for next season.

He said: “I was lying on a beach in Naples still feeling irate. We didn’t want to end a good season on a disappointing note.

“We said to the players ‘you’ve only got three and a half weeks off, don’t ruin your summer’ and we did.

“As a group of staff and players we weren’t god enough on the day and maybe it was a game too far.

“We also couldn’t use any of the players we had sent out on loan due to SFA rules – Jordan Thomson, Ryan Hardie, Tom Walsh.

“They had to be registered by the semi-final but what comes out of that is that maybe that rule should be changed because surely playing young players in a cup final would be fantastic.

“Losing Dom Ball was a blow. We couldn’t replace him. He would have given us that physicality in midfield. I’m not saying he would have changed the way things turned out but he is 6ft 2”.

“But we knew what we had to do this summer. We knew what we were losing so we went out and got them and when players became available we took them.

“I can’t speak about the aftermath. It’s a police matter and the authorities are dealing with it.”