Blackpool experience makes Barry Ferguson the 'right fit' for Rangers role

Ferguson took caretaker charge at Bloomfield Road back in 2014 following the sacking of Paul Ince and kept the Seasiders in the Championship by the skin of their teeth despite winning just three out of his 20 games.

The former Rangers player is now odds on for a leading role at Ibrox and Earnshaw, who Ferguson signed for Blackpool, believes he would make the perfect fit.

He told the Daily Record: “The period I had working for him was brief, but I totally respected him from the start given what he had achieved in his career as a player and what he was taking on at Blackpool.

“That was the most incredible learning process for him.

“Barry’s first job in coaching was dealing with everything that was going at Blackpool and he was doing that while also playing for the team.

“This really was a case of being thrown in at the deep end.

“Barry shows his personality as a manager and shows who he is as a person.

“You could see that straight away and he was very similar to how he played and the difficulty of what he had to undertake at Blackpool would have been great for him as he looks back.

“There was so much to learn and I’ve found myself that the deeper you are thrown into the fire at the beginning of your coaching career, the better it becomes for you in the end.

“Blackpool offered so-many challenges. There was everything going on at the time.

“Picking a team was probably the easy thing and I would have thought that having to manage situations which were difficult was a learning process going forward which has been superb for him.”