Title the aim for Warburton after Gers unveiling
FORMER Brentford boss and one-time City trader Mark Warburton has targeted winning the Scottish Championship title in his first season in charge after his appointment as Rangers manager was confirmed yesterday.
Warburton has signed a three-year deal at the Glasgow club and will be assisted by ex-Rangers captain David Weir, with whom he worked at Griffin Park.
The 52-year-old replaces Stuart McCall, who was overlooked for the permanent role after guiding Rangers to a humiliating 6-1 aggregate defeat to Motherwell in the Premiership play-offs while employed on an interim basis.
“Our aim is to win the division, of course it is. We have to,” said Warburton, who becomes the first Englishman to manage Rangers in the club’s 143-year history.
“Our job is to work with the squad, gel quickly and be very aggressive in what we do in terms of how we want to play the game and how we achieve our target of promotion.”
Warburton, a former currency dealer for the likes of AIG, Bank of America and RBS, last year guided Brentford to promotion and the second tier of English football for the first time in 21 years having succeeded Wigan Athletic-bound Uwe Rosler in December 2013.
Having previously worked as a first-team coach and sporting director at Griffin Park, Warburton led the Bees to the Championship play-offs and a first shot at top-flight football since 1947 this term, only to lose to Middlesbrough across a two-legged semi-final.
Brentford had announced in February that Warburton, along with Weir and sporting director Frank McParland, would leave the club when his contract expired at the end of the season after declining the opportunity to work in a revamped Continental structure.