MARK Warburton plans to sit down and watch Sky Sports' transfer deadline day coverage rather than appear on it.

The Rangers manager is a fan of sitting down, glass of wine in hand, as Jim White and co, bedecked in mandatory yellow ties and dresses, take you through the frenzied last hours of transfer activity. He is significantly less of a fan of scrabbling around frantically himself in those last desperate hours, paying over the odds for a player you don't know who may or may not deliver. While Steven Naismith proved on efficient 11th hour Rangers deadline day transfer swoop, the likes of Filippo Maniero and David Templeton were less so.

While the protracted transfer negotiations for St Johnstone striker Michael O'Halloran and Brentford midfielder Toumani Diagouraga are starting to become a saga, the Englishman has no plans to let it all rumble on until the hours immediately approaching midnight on Monday February 1, when the transfer window is scheduled to shut, one hour after it closes for Barclays Premier League clubs.

“It’s enjoyable watching it all with your feet up and a nice glass of red wine in hand!" said Warburton. "But if you are looking at the last five or six hours of a window then you’re in trouble. If it’s down to the last hour then you are paying over the odds or you have the wrong player. It could be the case [that you miss out on a bargain that way] but in my mind I wouldn’t want to be involved in that. For me that’s bad organisation of plans.

"Clubs do rush into it and agents also delay it," he added. "Clubs do pay more if they feel compelled to do it. You have this mix of agents, clubs, players and deadline days and I think it’s important that from a Rangers perspective we get our business done at a level we are comfortable with and if not then step away. You have to be comfortable with the decision. If you are prepared to endure a bit of pain then great, but if not then don’t do it. If we don’t sign anyone more in this window then I’ll be happy to go with what I’ve got.”

Principles often go out the window during transfer windows but Warburton's ideal scenario is signing another "one or two" players - presumably these are O'Halloran and Diagouraga - but it is one of the Rangers manager's mantra that signing too many players too suddenly only plants a seed of disharmony in a dressing room. It is worth pointing out that, while injuries have generally been kind to Rangers this year, he is already five points clear at the top of the division, has already added Polish goalkeeper Maciej Gostomski and on-loan Doncaster Rovers winger Harry Forrester to his group, with Matt Crooks and Josh Windass having agreed to join from Accrington Stanley in the summer.

There are problems too with players seeing that Rangers are the buying club and attempting to bump up the price, although to be fair an asking price in the region of £500,000 doesn't seem too outlandish for a player like O'Halloran.

“Ideal world?" he asked. "One or two more, that’s all we need. One or two more would do us nicely. But the squad’s got to be lean. I’m a big fan of lean squads. The worst thing you can do in January is to go too heavy. I think that upsets the harmony in the dressing room.

“I like it [the squad] small, three keepers, then you’re looking at 20 outfield players," he added. "I’m really happy with that. But then you have an academy, if it’s a Liam Burt or Dylan Dykes or whoever it may be, I’m quite happy to look at the possibility of promoting from within."

“It’s important we get it right. We put forward what we think represents value and that’s part of our job and why we get paid. We did that at Brentford and the boys we brought in over the summer – Tav, Waggy, Andy, Holty – we borught in boys we thought were good value and touch wood that’s been the case. We may get some wrong but if you get seven out of ten right then you are in a good position.”

One man who won't be around for the second half of the season, of course, is Nathan Oduwa, who returned this week to parent club Tottenham Hotspur. The flashy winger made an immediate impact, and quietly totalled no less than 19 appearances, but had fallen out of favour by the end and there was little point in him sitting on the bench in Glasgow rather than London.

"He didn’t ask to go back," said Warburton. "We have a really close relationship with the clubs down south and we talk most days. Spurs and Rangers just felt it was best for his education, the next stage of his education, to go back — whether that’s with their first team squad, their under-21s or whether it’s to go on loan again, I don’t know."