David Weir today revealed how Everton boss David Moyes advised him to stay with Rangers – although it ended his own attempt to get him on to the coaching staff at Goodison.

Moyes has identified Weir as someone he wants in his backroom team, but also recognised that the 41-year-old still has something to offer as a player at Ibrox.

Rather than pressure him into retiring in order to rejoin Everton as a coach, Moyes urged him to accept any new deal which might be put to him by Rangers manager Ally McCoist.

Now Weir will enter his sixth campaign as a Rangers player while also taking on coaching duties, having signed yet another one-year contract.

He said: "I always wanted to stay. I just had to speak to the manager to make sure he wanted me to stay and that he thought I could contribute.

"We had that conversation. I also want to get involved in the coaching side of things and he is giving me an opportunity to do that a bit. That's quite important, but playing in my priority."

Weir's ties with Everton are strong, having spent eight years there, and Moyes has wanted to bring him back for the past three years.

"David gave me an opportunity to go and work there and get involved in coaching.

"It's fantastic that he thinks about me like that. But we had a conversation and he said to me that I should keep playing for as long as I can, especially when I am playing for a club like Rangers.

"He understands my decision, but I am obviously flattered to be thought of in that way.

"I don't take it lightly or for granted. I don't know if the change to work at Everton will come round again.

"When you make decisions you don't know what will happen in the future. The coaching I would do with Rangers won't be with the first team, obviously.

"But I have been doing my coaching badges over the last few years and want to get 'hands- on' a bit more when time permits. But it's not something that I will let compromise my playing."

No player appeared in more Rangers games than Weir last season – he started 53 of them.

It seems inconceivable that he will take part in as many this time, when he will be 42 before the end of the season, but he has defied expectations before.

He said: "I have done it for the past four or five seasons. I finish a game and then want to play in the next one. I don't think about months ahead and that's always the way I have been."