KRREN BRADY: Cardiff boss Neil Warnock loves a verbal fight just as much as Jose Mourinho
Bluebirds boss has got his side close to a Premier League return thanks to his no-nonsense style of management
EXCLUSIVE
By Karren Brady
24th March 2018,
NEIL WARNOCK loves a verbal fight and the only other manager I know with such a quarrelsome streak is Jose Mourinho.
For them, ‘Oh, yes he does. Oh, no he doesn’t’ is an attitude they must have been born with.
Neil Warnock is always up for a verbal fight
The two will meet verbally next season if Cardiff continue to crush their Championship rivals, providing Warnock with a record eighth promotion in 35 years as a boss.
Warnock, 69, has left traces of his disputatious nature at every one of the 15 teams he has managed — including two spells at Crystal Palace and QPR.
Once touched by his toxic nouns, referees, managers, players, directors, indeed anyone within range, remain marked by the experience.
And, of course, he is a star in the Welsh capital as he was at the previous seven clubs he led to promotion — there’s no end to his skill at stirring emotion.
Karren Brady says Warnock has one of the most quarrelsome streaks in football
It works among players who will never have come across such a mix of arm-around-the-shoulder and stinging tongue, let alone of competitiveness, tactical cunning, dressing-room wisdom and laughter.
My husband, Paul Peschisolido, played for him at Sheffield United.
He tells the story of how Warnock arranged a game of ten-pin bowling on a team-bonding weekend at Scarborough . . . He convinced us all to put £10 in the pot, winner take all.
“We agreed for some fun, then he pulled out his own bowling shoes and custom ball, shot 250 and took all our money.”
Warnocks style is guiding Cardiff towards an automatic promotion place
Does anyone compare with Mourinho and Warnock in loving an argument?
The Manchester United manager’s treatment of Luke Shaw had barely faded from the airwaves when Warnock lambasted Derby and their manager Gary Rowett for the postponement of Cardiff’s key promotion match at snowbound Pride Park.
Now Warnock is on the brink of what must surely be his last chance at the top flight. He’s had three bashes at the Premier League and failed to make a single wave.
I’m no expert on what transforms a Premier League newcomer into a stayer and, goodness knows, we’re having problems at West Ham.
But I’ve no doubt money and a settled structure helps — and that leading a Championship team for the step up, while creating a style that can withstand some of the best sides in the world is a titanic task.
Warnock knows he may not get another chance to crack the top flight.
Perhaps it is no coincidence Warnock admits he prefers the rough and tumble of the second tier.
It’s there he is appreciated as a cocksure gunfighter with a bullet for anyone who crosses him. He’s a heck of a man-manager, too.
As Paul again recounted: “He once pulled me in on a Monday after I’d scored a hat-trick on the Saturday. He made me feel absolutely brilliant then told me I was being dropped for the next match.
“Somehow, instead of feeling I wanted to kill him, I still felt great.”
Seven times Warnock has retired. He’s as reluctant to leave the stage as dear old Ken Dodd used to be, so a two-year addition to his Cardiff contract is a nice insurance. And we’d miss his righteous fury, anyway.
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