MAKE YOUR MARK
King tells new Rangers boss Warburton he must deliver Championship title — or else
FORMER City trader Mark Warburton has been told to win the Championship in his first season at Rangers — or pay the price.
The ex- Brentford boss will be unveiled as the new manager at Ibrox on a three-year deal today alongside assistant Davie Weir.
Despite the length of contract, Sportsmail understands that during the final stages of the r ecruitment process, cl ub chairman Dave King told him that only winning the title will guarantee his job beyond the end of the season.
Warburton ( ri ght), whose first move could be to bring Lewis Macleod back from Griff i n Park, has j umped at the chance to prove himself in Govan, with former Ibrox skipper Weir in tandem.
The 52-year-old Londoner, whose 18 months at Brentford represent the s um t ot a l of hi s managerial experience, will start with immediate effect — and has a huge ‘to do’ list on the agenda.
Rangers are still in the process of putting together a scouting network which was dismantled under the previous regime, although Warburton brings with him a list of transfer targets. Macleod could potentially be his first purchase, less than six months after Warburton took him
to Brentford from Ibrox. The Scotland Under-21 player, who was sold in a cut-price £850,000 move in January, is yet to play for the English Championship outfit due to a hamstring injury. With his fitness problems now behind him, Warburton may want to build a team around him the way he planned to do at Griffin Park before his departure. Brentford owner Matthew Benham is expected to want at least what he paid for Macleod, who is contracted until 2018, plus extras which would take any deal well in excess of £1million. Macleod, who turns 21 tomorrow, was reluctant to leave Ibrox and has spoken of his desire to return. He has struggled with injury but was a stand-out for Rangers in the early part of last season. Warburton, who led Brentford to the Play-Off semi-finals last season in the Championship, emerged from a five-strong field as the number-one choice of a recruitment committee. He will be just the 15th man to have held the full-time manager’s job in the club’s 143-year history. Also on the original fiveman shortlist were Derek McInnes, who ruled himself out by signing a new deal with Aberdeen on Friday, former Nottingham Forest boss Billy Davies, one-time Ibrox gaffer Alex McLeish, who also ruled himself out of the running to pursue other options, ex-Valencia assistant Ian Cathro and Stuart McCall. Former non-league player Warburton, who quit a wellpaid job in the City to pursue his love of coaching, finally got his crack when he took over from Uwe Rosler at Brentford in December 2013. Having already overseen the redevelopment of the academy at the London club, the man who co-founded the NextGen series — an Under19s Champions League since taken over by UEFA — won immediate promotion from League One. Despite building a team that got to within a couple of victories of the Premier League, Warburton fell out with the Griffin Park owner and was instructed to leave at the end of the season. When he was first linked with the Rangers job, Warburton said the role was about more than merely ‘steadying’ the club. He said: ‘Whoever goes in at Rangers must appreciate the size of the task in terms of the history of the club and where they have to be. ‘This is about making progress in a designated period of time.’