MARK HATELEY admits his dream job at Rangers would be working alongside director of football Mark Allen.

Hateley – a Light Blues ambassador – has been impressed with the job done by the former Manchester City academy supremo since he arrived at Ibrox last summer.

4 Hateley has been a Gers ambassador for 18 years Credit: Kenny Ramsay - The Sun Glasgow

He says a role under Allen is one of the few he would get return to football on a full-time basis for.

The former England striker – who had a spell as Hull’s player-manager in the late 90s - said: “The only thing that’d get me back would be something about the overall look of a football club.

“I’ve done the hospitality, the managing, the coaching and the playing.

“I’ve got a good overview of most things that happen inside football clubs.

4 Mark Allen joined Rangers last summer Credit: PA:Press Association

“That job has not been there or I don’t know what sort of job it is - it’s a difficult thing to put your finger on.

“If they [Rangers] were looking for an assistant to help Mark Allen out, it’d be a nice thing to be able to do because then I’d be able to do other things around that.

“But that’s by the by.”

He added: “I’ve had a couple of words with the manager [Graeme Murty] on a couple of things which he’s listened to, as I did when Walter [Smith] was in charge.

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“Walter and I went down south to look at strikers, just to see what I thought and what he was thinking – this is when I was playing.

“It’s never been to get me back in full-time though.

“It’d be interesting if that opportunity came to me, what I’d say to get me back in full time.

“It’s something I’d seriously probably think about, I’m at the right age now.”

The ex-Monaco and AC Milan hitman, who formed a lethal partnership with Ally McCoist during his time in Glasgow, says he has knocked back several jobs in England.

He said: “I was offered a job in Europe - I couldn’t be bothered.

4 Allen - with Lee Wallace - has been instrumental in capture of Sean Goss and Jamie Murphy Credit: Willie Vass

“I was happy with what I was doing here.

“I’ve got a lot of friends here and I’ve got a lot more people around me here than wherever I went when I was playing football in the early years.”

Last summer Hateley was in Northern Ireland for a Rangers function as the club’s U-20s – bossed by Murty and academy chief Craig Mulholland - played a friendly against Portadown.

And he was stunned to be asked to advise one of the Gers youngsters.

Hateley recalled: “Craig came to me and said, ‘Will you talk to a couple of the lads?’

“I said, ’Well not really, I don’t think it’s my remit’. But I ended up talking to one of the strikers.

“He was trying to create the space for a No10 to play all the time and there’s a special way of doing it.

4 Hateley worked under Capello at AC Milan Credit: Corbis

“I explained to the boy he probably wouldn’t get a kick for most of the game and that he’d be getting one tenth of the touches he’d normally get.

“But after 50, 60, 70 minutes into the game, he’d be having shots all day long.

“And it worked out that way – space for the No10 and the boy ended up scoring two goals.

“But I never thought about going back into that side of things.”

Hateley's illustrious career saw him spend three seasons at Milan in the mid-80s under the tutelage of Swedish icon Nils Liedholm and his then-assistant Fabio Capello.

He said: “In my first year I had Nils Liedholm – ex-centre forward and scorer of a World Cup goal in the 1958 Pele final – taking me one on one.

“It was with Capello and a bag of balls and they were teaching me how to play the game of football.

“One to one training is incredible and if you’re taught it, you can teach it.

“There’s a lot to be said about being taught in the workplace and not in an exam room.”

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