Mark Warburton hopes Rangers experience will help him at Forest

Mark Warburton is tasked with saving Nottingham Forest from relegation. Picture: SNS.

The struggling English Championship club yesterday confirmed the appointment of the 54-year-old as their new manager, just over a month after his  controversial Ibrox exit.

Warburton, who replaces interim manager Gary Brazil, has signed a two-and-a-half-year contract at the City Ground and will be joined by assistant  David Weir. The pair will link up with former Rangers head of recruitment Frank McParland once again following his appointment as Forest’s director of football earlier this month.

Warburton left Rangers in February after they claimed they had accepted his resignation and he believes having to deal with the huge expectation levels at the Glasgow giants was an invaluable experience.

“I hope it will help me; you’d like to think that you learn something from every club you are at,” he said. “It is an incredible level of expectation up there. But every job you take, you hope that you gain from it and get stronger for it. As a person you hope you are better for the experience and it was a big two years in Glasgow. But we have emerged from that and we are delighted to be here. We understand the expectation here and we look forward to hopefully playing a part in getting the club back to where it needs to be.”

Warburton had been earmarked as a summer target by Forest owner and chairman Fawaz Al Hasawi following the appointment of McParland.

But Forest’s defeat at  Burton on Saturday was their fifth in their last seven league games and left them just two points above the  relegation zone.

Al Hasawi was keen to have Warburton in charge for Saturday’s home league clash against arch rivals Derby, who confirmed Gary Rowett as their new manager yesterday.

“I wanted to get him for some time; he was a manager I admired when he was at Glasgow Rangers. But he was in a job with another club,” Al Hasawi told the Nottingham Post. “But when he left Rangers, we tried to talk to him and negotiate a deal. The important thing for him was that he wanted to be here for some time; to have the chance to work on things over time. But we have got him now and we are very happy.”

l Romelu Lukaku’s future at Everton has been thrown into doubt after he told the club he does not want to sign his new contract.

Only last week the striker’s agent had claimed the deal was “99.99999999” per cent done. But, despite the prospect of becoming the Toffees’ first £100,000-plus-a-week player, the 23-year-old is understood to have informed the club yesterday that the new contract will remain unsigned.