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FORMER Brentford keeper Richard Lee persuaded Duncan Bannatyne to front him £150,000 for baseball caps when he appeared on Dragons’ Den.

And the former England Under-21 starlet will raise his hat to Rangers if they appoint Mark Warburton because they will have a boss to transform their club and challenge Celtic within two seasons.

Lee has worked with Warburton for more than a decade, first at Watford when the Ibrox target started as a youth coach after quitting his job as a city trader to follow his passion for football.

The 32-year-old rates him even higher than former Hornets bosses Brendan Rodgers and Malky Mackay and insists Warburton’s background in the cut throat world of finance, working with HSBC, has given him all the skills he needs to survive at the highest level.

Lee has offered an insight into the modern methods of Warburton, which almost paid off when he led the Bees to the brink of the Premier League last season, only to lose to Middlesbrough in the play-offs.

It was a remarkable campaign for the club, who had won promotion 12 months earlier and been tipped for a return to the third tier.

Lee said: “We massively over-achieved last season given the fact our wage bill was one of the smallest in the Championship.

(Image: TMS)

“There is a misconception only ex-players are capable of managing footballers and inspiring them.

“The bottom line is Mark had a harder job in the city, a more difficult environment than football, dealing with silly money on a daily basis.

“He was trading in seven-figure sums every 24 hours, working with a bigger team than a football squad, with people who were earning more money and had bigger egos.

“He has taken his business acumen and built it into football.

“I’m not quite sure he was The Wolf of Wall Street but the lessons and disciplines learned as a trader stood him in good stead as his attention to detail is amazing. Mark arrived at the Brentford training ground every morning at 5.30am, three hours before everyone else, and his planning was meticulous.

“The growth of Brentford these last two years has been tremendous. As players, we were used to turning up at 10am and heading straight out to training.

“Now? The first hour is spent giving blood and urine samples and answering questionnaires to ensure we’re living right and our energy levels are optimised.

“Our gym has grown to three times its size and we’ve even added a Pilates studio.

(Image: Action Images)

“The football we’ve played in the last two years has been superb.

“I’ve never been asked to kick it long once. He prefers to build an attacking style from the back and the fans loved it. They sang his name constantly in our last two games of the season. They’re devastated he has gone.

“Mark favours a 4-3-3, which drops to a 4-5-1 when we’re asked to defend. He’s keen on lines of passes, triangles all over the pitch, shots from distance, crosses from wingers and getting players into pockets where they can spread it wide.

“In one game against Blackpool we had 47 shots alone.

“Mark is massively into analysis. We were favourites for relegation yet he provided us with stats at the beginning of the season to prove we’d be in the top six.

“He is all about development, picking up hungry young players and helping them improve.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Brendan and Malky at Watford. Mark is on a par, if not better, than both.”

Lee, who retired injured at the end of the season after a brief loan spell at Fulham, still kicks himself for missing a trip to the trading floor at HSBC that Warburton organised for some players and backroom staff last year.

But he doesn’t need business tips after he persuaded Bannatyne to invest six figures in his Dr Cap business, which continues to thrive, along with his coffee retail start-up Organo Gold.

He said: “Duncan offered £150,000 for a stake in Dr Cap but the investment fell through after the Dragons’ Den show. It didn’t happen but the business is still alive and kicking.”

The fact Warburton is doing likewise in the fevered environment of football after years in the financial markets convinces Lee his former gaffer would have no issues handling Glasgow’s goldfish bowl.

He added: “You see so many managers crumble but not Mark. He realises it’s football, just a game. Rangers are a big step up from Brentford but they would be the perfect match.

“Rangers are a massive club and it’s a shame what has happened to them in recent years but they’ll soon be on the verge of greatness again if Mark gets the job.

“It would be easy to throw silly money at big-name players but that would only take the club back to the place from which they have only recently emerged.

“Mark’s work is focused on working with hungry young players, building a system from the bottom up throughout the club that develops quality at youth level with a modern approach and a structured training regime.

“Within a couple of years, he would get Rangers back to the top of the Premiership.”

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