The men who can shake up the Prem
COLLY
I’D love to see Fulham clinch automatic promotion behind Wolves today.
I’ve got a soft spot for them after spending three months on loan at Craven Cottage from Aston Villa in 1999 and I have plenty of respect for what Slavisa Jokanovic has done.
Everything was geared towards them being a lower-half-of-the-table side this season, or maybe even dropping down into League One if things had gone really badly.
So the fact he is playing such good, attacking football with a youngish side is a credit to him.
They get the ball down and play it through the lines, and I’d like to see more of that in the Premier League.
Toenails
Wolves, under Nuno Espirito Santo, have gone up playing attacking, on-thedeck football and Fulham would be in that mould as well.
So I’d expect both to go out against the big boys next season and not just lie down, as some Premier League sides have done this term.
All that said, I still have Cardiff down to finish second today given they are at home to Reading while Fulham are away at Birmingham. Which is fine by me because I have a little soft spot for them as well. I mean, what’s not to like about Neil Warnock?
My history with him dates back to the days when he was in charge at Notts County, where I went on trial with a guy called Phil Robinson.
We walked into the dressing room and there was Warnock, on his hands and knees, cutting the toenails of the senior pros.
He’s a manager who epitomises everything that is good and bad about football.
He can be spiteful and prickly at times but he has a high work-rate and is the kind of manager who would have got the best out of me.
He demands a decent work ethic and loyalty, and the test of any manager is how players who have played for him talk about him afterwards.
Obviously, there are a few who don’t like Warnock but the vast majority seem appreciative of the hard work he puts in and the loyalty he shows.
That counts for a hell of a lot in a shallow football age when players, managers and clubs show each other such little respect.
He’s the last of a dying breed on that front and, even if you don’t like him, you have to respect him because he has given the game a hell of a lot.
Like those other gaffers who have managed 1000-plus games — including Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Harry Redknapp, and Tony Pulis — you cannot reach that level without becoming something of a caricature.
But you do not get to that number unless you have incredible professionalism and a genuine appetite for work.
This isn’t a guy who is purely long-ball.
He has had teams which get the ball down and play, and teams which are more direct, but he has managed to work with what he has been given at all of his clubs.
Warnock hasn’t had much joy in the Premier League so it will be interesting to see how he gets on this time if Cardiff do go up today or if they win the play-offs.
The top flight is difficult because you’re talking about a huge jump up in budgets.
And the problem for him — and it has been the same for Sam Allardyce and Pulis for most of their careers — is that, if you’re being given a certain type of player to work with, you are going to get a certain outcome.
Average
The one thing that would make life a bit easier for Warnock this time is that from seventh spot down there are a lot of average teams in the Premier League.
Every one of them is capable of being beaten and the fact Burnley didn’t win for 11 games and dropped only one position tells you all you need to know. Yes, Burnley, not Manchester City. So if Cardiff do go up then these are potentially exciting times for the Bluebirds, and for Warnock too.
Hopefully Villa will follow them up from the play-offs but, if that can’t happen, then here’s to Fulham getting there too.