MARK WARBURTON insists he will take nothing for granted in his pursuit of players as he targets early reinforcements to his Rangers squad next month.

The Ibrox boss will go back into the market to make another couple of additions to boost the Light Blues ranks for the second half of the campaign.

The departure of Joey Barton in November and the loss of Niko Kranjcar for the rest of the campaign through injury has left Warburton short of midfield options.

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Brentford midfielder Jota, who is currently on loan at Eibar, has been heavily linked with a switch to Rangers in recent days as Warburton considers his January moves.

The Gers head into their Christmas Eve clash with Inverness Caley Thistle seven points ahead of Aberdeen and Hearts in the race to be best of the rest in the Premiership.

And Warburton is keen to get down to business when the window opens and add further strength and depth to his Ibrox squad.

“I was in Spain earlier this week, apparently, which is quite remarkable,” he said when asked about any interest in Jota.

“We are looking at targets. We are very clear on what we are looking for.

“We are looking in midfield, we have lost players for different reasons.

“January is notoriously difficult. So loans are an obvious option for us.

“We need players of the right quality – players who can add quality to the team. It’s not about numbers.

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“If it was young Liam Burt could step up. It’s about adding quality and if we could do that, great.

“We have a list, quite an extensive list, in categories one, two and three. We hope we are very close to two of them, fingers crossed.

“But until they sign for you, you have to man-mark them – literally. You man mark them until they are over the line.

“Some people stay in a hotel to make sure another club doesn’t come along and take them.

“I know of a big club in London who had a guy in on trial for a week.

“He impressed them, agreed a deal and wanted to go home to get some clothes.

“They man-marked him all the way to Terminal 5. To the point where they saw him into the departure lounge – where another club were waiting to sign him. That was it.

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“At that point you go, ‘wow’, that’s the nature of the game. Until players sign for us you never, ever count your chickens.

“I would like to [do our business early], because I think the longer it goes on…

“It’s not the case that you panic, but other clubs might panic and move so I’d like to get it done.”