Mark Warburton watched Rangers triumph 2-0 in an open and entertaining Betfred Cup encounter at Motherwell on Saturday but remained sceptical about the new format.

His men recovered from a shaky start when Motherwell missed a series of clear-cut chances to move top of Group F thanks to second-half goals from James Tavernier and Martyn Waghorn.

Rangers improved as the game went on but Warburton still felt the demands were too great on his players at this stage of their preparations for a Ladbrokes Premiership campaign.

When asked how the game compared to a pre-season friendly, Warburton said: “The difference is you can make eight or nine subs. I would rather have made more subs, got Clint Hill on, got Lee Hodson on, got various players on.

“If you have that pre-season friendly it gives you flexibility to make changes, because the boys aren’t ready for 90 minutes.”

Warburton did not include any of his eight summer signings in his starting line-up but Niko Kranjcar and Josh Windass made their debuts off the bench.

And the likes of Joey Barton and Joe Dodoo – provided he completes his switch from Leicester – could feature against Annan tomorrow.

“The players will be sore and we will have to make changes for Tuesday night’s game,” he said.

“But four games in nine days is too much, especially when you have paying spectators.

“You can’t take them lightly when you have four or five thousand Rangers fans who have paid good money to come here.

“So, we have got to make sure we treat them the right way. It’s one of the big three tournaments. But why are we playing four games in nine days?

“Joey will be involved on Tuesday in some capacity, Lee Hodson will start the game on Tuesday, Matt Gilks and Clint Hill will start.

“We will try and give the squad the right amount of pitch time. If we can do that, pre-season will be worthwhile.”