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Aitor Karanka is, in acting terminology, resting between projects.

It’s more than three months since he left Nottingham Forest after he “asked to be released from his contract” according to a club spokesman.

Forest were seventh in the Championship at the time and, by common consent, Karanka was doing a steady if unspectacular job and equated his first year at the City Ground with his early days of incremental gains at Middlesbrough.

In a new interview with Spanish website Marca, the 45-year-old has been talking about his time with both clubs and says he’s now ready to manage outside England for the first time.

Assessing his Forest experience, he said: “I spent almost 10 months without coaching because I wanted a project that excited me.

“I had many offers, but none had convinced me and when Nottingham made contact - an historic team with European Cups and so long without being in the Premier League - I was excited.

“The project was to try to do what I had done at Middlesbrough. A first season of acclimatization because the team had stayed up the previous year at the last second, make a leap in quality in the second and try to climb, probably, in the third.

“But during the process that project changed a bit. There was some uncertainty and I decided to leave at a time when the next coach had room to manoeuvre with the signings.”

Rumours about Karanka’s future at Forest started circulating well before he eventually left and he feels that affected the players.

“You see that the fans are excited... however uncertainty is created and you see that it moves to the squad.

“The players felt that pressure (and) that caused them not to be at their level. In the end, I decided to step aside for the history of the club, for the fans, for the players.”

Forest replaced Karanka with Martin O’Neill with no obvious signs of improvement before Easter Monday’s 3-0 win over Middlesbrough at the City Ground.

When he left Boro, however, chairman Steve Gibson promoted from within by making Steve Agnew head coach.

Karanka says he has no regrets about leaving Forest - or Boro for that matter.

“No, when I made the decision, as well as leaving Middlesbrough, I thought it was the best thing to see if with my departure there has that effect that usually occurs when there is a change of coach. But (it didn’t) in either of the two cases.”

(Image: Simon Moore/Focus Images Ltd)

Karanka is open to new opportunities and says he would consider a club in his Spanish homeland.

“Two-to-three years ago it would have been impossible, but right now it is a door that is open,” he said.

“When I left Middlesbrough I only thought about continuing in England, whether it was Championship or Premier League, which obviously would have been much better. Now I am open to any league.”

Karanka was Middlesbrough’s first ‘foreign’ head coach and was attracted by the project chairman Steve Gibson sold to him.

“I had the option to go with (Jose) Mourinho to Chelsea or to continue with (Real) Madrid because I had another three years on my contract, but we decided that it was best to go out and start my solo career.

“At a family level we wanted to know another language, another culture and the possibility of going to Middlesbrough arose. I will always say: ‘That was the best decision I could make’.”

Boro were 16th in the Championship when he took charge in November 2013, five points above the drop zone and he still values the support he received from the chairman when his first few weeks in the hotseat resulted in just one win from five fixtures.

“When you’re starting you make mistakes that would have been penalized elsewhere,” he said. “In Middlesbrough they gave me the peace and confidence I needed, even after winning only one of the first five games.

(Image: Peter Reimann)

“I wanted to return the trust that they offered me from the beginning. Having that relationship that I have with Steve Gibson, seeing that he supported me in everything.

“There will be more promotions, hopefully, but the sensations that I experienced during those two-and-a-half years in Middlesbrough are hard to forget.

“A team that flirted with (relegation to) League One went on to compete with the best of the Premier League.”

Karanka did, of course, achieve promotion in his second full season in charge at Boro but things didn’t go according to plan in the Premier League and he left the club in March 2017 with 11 fixtures remaining.

Looking back on that season, he said: “The goal was to compete with the lowest budget against the biggest teams in the league.

“It was a shame. We made the best possible signings. We had (Alvaro) Negredo and (Victor) Valdes, who helped us a lot. We was competed against everyone. With City we drew 1-1 at the Etihad; at Manchester United we were wining 1-0 until 85th minute, with Tottenham we had options to draw until the last minute.

“In the games of our (mini) league we won: Hull, Sunderland, Bournemouth, Swansea... It is true that in January the team could not be reinforced anymore and that penalized us a little bit.”

(Image: MFC)

So what’s Karanka doing now?

“The last year has been intense because of how football is lived in England, more so in the Championship, and this break allows me to do things that I can not do when I’m coaching.”