This time Warnock wants to enjoy the ride
The Cardiff manager has suffered in the top flight but tells Jim White this season can be different
Neil Warnock already has his motivational speech prepared ahead of Cardiff ’s opening Premier League fixture at Bournemouth today. It is an address, he believes, that will reflect the scale of the journey his players have made, from last season’s Championship relegation favourites to automatic promotion to the top flight. As team talks go, it is not a long one.
“There’s only one thing to say,” he reckons. “How the b----- h--have we got here?”
Warnock has been in this position before. He first took charge of a team in the top division in 1991, when he led Notts County out at Old Trafford, astonished as he emerged from the tunnel to see a sign instructing visitors to “Keep Off The Grass” in 14 languages.
He has been back since with Sheffield United and Crystal Palace (he was sacked before he could take QPR there). Which makes him all the more determined to have fun this time round. “It’s like getting a ticket for a mystery bus ride, you don’t really know where you’re going to end up, but let’s enjoy it,” he says with a smile. “This time, I’ve got a good chairman, which makes a change. And if the worst comes to the worst, they’ll sack me before Christmas, I’ll get another job in the Championship and go for [promotion] No 9.”
‘If the worst comes to the worst, they’ll sack me before Christmas and I’ll get another job’
Not that he plans to be leaving any time soon. Even at 69, the second-oldest manager in the division, he plans to stick around as long as he can. Especially as he senses that Cardiff are a club who have learnt from their one previous engagement with the Premier League and are looking this time to build without panic. It is an approach, he says, reflected in their summer’s transfer business.
While Wolves and Fulham have marked their elevation by each spending vast amounts on reconstructing their squads, he has preferred to trust the players that gained promotion. To them, he has added four signings from the Championship, plus on loan Victor Camarasa from Real Betis and Harry Arter from Bournemouth.
“Our lads are players who never dreamed they would be playing in the Premier League. They’ve got things to prove, which I always think is a nice recipe. No doubt we’ll get beat by quality. But I tell you this much, there’s not many of my players I wouldn’t want in the trenches alongside me.”
Besides, he is not entirely sure he would be comfortable with the sort of transfer kitty some of his rival managers have had access to this summer. “What would I do with £100 million?” he asks. “I’ve never had a good record with signings. Particularly forwards. I said that to Bobby Reid [bought from Bristol City for £10 million], ‘I could do with you coming off son’.”
In short, Warnock does not want to saddle his club with overpaid players who they would then have to offload in the event of demotion. If Cardiff are relegated, he wants to be in a position for a quick return to the Premier League. And relegation is a subject never far from his thoughts.
“I think everybody has us tipped to go straight down,” he admits. “One of the first jobs I had was at Scarborough in the Conference. The day I arrived there was only one player registered. We were 50-1 to finish bottom. And that season we ended up winning the league.”
It is that sort of defiance that has long marked the Warnock modus operandi.
“Why I’m still sat here now is I want to prove people wrong,” he says. “Whether it’s a chairman who’s sacked me, fans who’ve booed me, whoever. It was lovely last year to get promotion and see quite a few clubs left behind. I really get satisfaction from that.”
Though, this season, he reckons he would gain a lot more satisfaction from finishing in 17th place. That, he says, would be his finest accomplishment in football. Though right now, even to be discussing where he might finish in the top flight is something he thought he would never do again. It is something to be relished.
“My daughter said to me the other day: ‘Dad, there’s only 20 managers in the Premier League and you’re one of them’. Come on, it’s a great achievement.”