The former Rangers manager wasn’t expecting the City Ground job until the summer but now faces a survival battle, beginning against Derby
Saturday’s encounter between Nottingham Forest and Derby will feature two managers both new to the fixture. For many derbies that might be unusual, but in this case it is a familiar situation: this will be the fifth successive game between the two clubs with new managers in each dugout. In the 16 months since the pair last met at the City Ground, the two clubs have changed managers eight times between them. It is as if the two rivals are competing to see which can be the most chaotic club in the east Midlands.
The latest man to make himself comfortable – but perhaps not too comfortable – in the Forest dugout is Mark Warburton. Until recently Rangers manager, Warburton left Ibrox in slightly curious circumstances last month, after the club claimed he and his assistant David Weir resigned, something they strenuously denied. Given that Warburton is Forest’s third manager of a season that now sees them two points off the relegation zone, is the eighth permanent manager since 2012 and the club are owned by the erratic and unpopular Fawaz al-Hasawi, he is not exactly trading an unstable position for a rock solid one. “You have to take risks,” said Warburton after becoming the latest man to walk through the City Ground’s revolving door. “You can’t always play safe, far from it.”
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