Scunthorpe United: Brian Laws replaces Alan Knill as manager

League One strugglers Scunthorpe United have brought in former boss Brian Laws to replace sacked manager Alan Knill.

The 48-year-old Knill took over at Glanford Park in March 2011 but was unable to save them from relegation from the Championship.

Laws, 51, has previously managed the Iron twice, between 1997 and March 2004, and between April 2004 to 2006.

In a statement the club said they were confident Laws would be able to restore confidence to the squad.

Scunthorpe are 22nd in the table with 10 points and on Saturday were beaten 3-0 at home by MK Dons.

The result at the weekend means they have lost five of their last seven matches.

The statement said Laws, who was director of football at League of Ireland side Shamrock Rovers towards the end of last season but had recently expressed a desire to return to management in England, would start work on Tuesday, 30 October and be assisted by Russ Wilcox.

A defender who played primarily for Burnley, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Forest, Laws managed Grimsby Town - another of his former clubs - before first taking over at Scunthorpe.

He guided the club to promotion in 1999 and again in 2005. In November 2006 he took over at Sheffield Wednesday, and, after leaving the Owls by mutual consent in December 2009, was appointed manager of Burnley the following month following Owen Coyle's move to Bolton.

Laws was sacked by the Lancashire club in December 2010.

Scunthorpe chairman Steve Wharton, who announced the change in manager, also confirmed he is to step down at the end of the season and that the club lost a "substantial" amount of money last season.

Wharton said: "We will do so again this year. In any business you cannot continually do that year after year unless you have somebody prepared to come in and throw money at the situation.

"I will do whatever I can that is best for the club, but at the moment there is nobody who has come forward to take over," he continued.

"I don't own the club, however I have a substantial stake in it.

"I myself am not looking to make any money out of it, I would rather give them away if it helped. I just want to find somebody to take over looking after the club."