WARNOCK’S WAIFS WON’T GIVE UP
Sol BaMBa paid tribute to his ‘ father figure’ Neil warnock, whose football orphanage of waifs, strays and assorted wasters has quickly detached itself from the rest of the Championship.
Bamba scored the winner to propel Cardiff three points clear at the top — four above third spot — and open a seven-point gap to seventh place after five successive victories.
The manager confessed that his team’s perfect five- star start has surprised, even startled him, and said it surpasses any he has achieved in his five decades in the game. But it is built on the familiar warnock theme of finding wayward, often troubled players and offering them the warmth of a paternal arm around their sagging shoulders and self-belief.
Ivorian central defender Bamba is one of those and his 68-year-old manager is also restoring the careers and egos of four other previously unloved but now key players — Kenneth Zohore, Junior Hoilett, Nathaniel Mendez-laing and loic damour.
‘He’s like a father figure to be honest,’ said Bamba, who was banned for three matches last season after a touchline meltdown following his sending- off at Ipswich. ‘ we’ve got a very good relationship. we don’t even need to talk much, we just understand each other and he’s given me a lot of confidence to express myself on the pitch.
‘when it’s not good he’ll tell you as it is, and when it’s good he’s happy to praise you — and that’s what we like.
‘He has been a calming influence on me. He gives out a rollicking when you need one. But he gets that balance between when you need to be really woken up and when you need to be calmed down.
‘His mind is very young. There are
a few things about him which I can’t tell you. He’s very good with the lads, jokes around a lot but at the same time he’s straightforward, and footballers appreciate that.
‘We have always been in contact, but we had never managed to properly work together before. But as soon as he had the chance to bring me in he did, and as soon as I had the chance to work with him I took it.’
Bamba, 32, had been shown the door by Leeds United when Warnock made him his first Cardiff signing last October.
the France-raised defender had gone through five clubs in as many years, but after some of those frustrations bubbled to the surface last season, he is now the linchpin in a Bluebirds defence who have conceded only two goals in 450 minutes.
Warnock said: ‘You can see why I gave sol a three-year contact this week. He epitomises Cardiff City at the minute.
‘He brings the best out of (fellow centre back) sean Morrison and it’s a happy place.’
Queens Park Rangers were the first club to take the lead against Cardiff this season, through Matt smith’s header. But Hoilett’s persistence gave him a deserved, if fortuitous goal against his former club, before Bamba’s towering header reflected Cardiff ’ s dominance.
Rangers manager Ian Holloway complained that referee simon Hooper should have taken a firmer line towards Cardiff’s Lee Peltier for a challenge on Josh scowen when the game was still scoreless.
‘ I over- reacted to a Peltier challenge on my midfielder at first, but my team reacted to that and that’s why we went in front,’ said Holloway.
‘Was it deliberate? Who knows? But the ref should have seen it, though. that’s his job, isn’t it?’