Neil Warnock advised Kadeem Harris to leave Cardiff - but could they be reunited at Middlesbrough?
Football 24/7
Sunday 27th March 2021
Middlesbrough have been credited with interest in Sheffield Wednesday winger Kadeem Harris this summer
As Neil Warnock plans for next season the name of Kadeem Harris has been mooted in recent weeks.
The winger played under Warnock at Cardiff City and is out of contract at Sheffield Wednesday this summer, with reports suggesting Warnock would like a reunion at Middlesbrough next season.
Warnock would not comment on Harris in particular when asked about the links recently, but has confirmed that he will be on the lookout for wingers in the summer transfer window.
With the loans of Yannick Bolasie and Neeskens Kebano set to end, and Nathaniel Mendez-Laing out of contract, Boro will certainly need wingers.
Signing Harris would bring an end to the 27-year-old's two years at Hillsborough. He joined them for free in 2019, ironically on the advice of then-Cardiff boss Warnock.
With that in mind, does a speculated reunion at Middlesbrough make sense?
Without context it appears a strange one, particularly given Harris was never a regular under Warnock at Cardiff.
Dominic Booth covered the Bluebirds during Warnock's time there.
"He actually had a very up and down spell at Cardiff overall and under Neil Warnock.
“He broke into the team under Paul Trollope at the start of the 16/17 season as a wing-back.
“Cardiff were lacking anyone with any kind of pace and Harris had loads of that.
“He joined the club as a teenager from Wycombe and had to bide his time before that under various managers.
“Under Trollope, with the team crying out for pace, he came into the equation and then Warnock arrived and brought Junior Hoilett in almost straight away on a free.
“That was Warnock getting a winger he wanted in, and it meant that Harris wasn’t an automatic pick.
“He was in the reckoning though that season and did pretty well - Hoilett and Harris were the two main wingers. Craig Noone had been ahead of Harris before that, but Noone sort of went out of the picture and Harris came into it.”
With Cardiff's Championship status secure, Warnock set about rebuilding his squad in South Wales in the summer of 2017. Current Boro man Nathaniel Mendez-Laing was one new arrival, though in what turned out to be their promotion-winning campaign, Harris had been expected to be a regular starter.
“He barely played in the promotion-winning season because he picked up a bad injury that kept him out for almost the entirety of it," Dominic continues.
“I think he would have played a fair bit were it not for that because his pace is an attribute that Warnock values a lot.
“Most people at that time expected Hoilett and Harris would be the regular wingers that season, even though they’d brought in Nathaniel Mendez-Laing.
“Mendez-Laing arrived for free from Rochdale but nobody had really heard of him. But in Harris’ absence Mendez-Laing had a brilliant season.
“Mendez-Laing and Hoilett had excellent seasons and really suited Cardiff’s counter-attacking style. Their pacey attack came through those two and they caused defences all sorts of trouble. But Harris would have been capable of adding to that were it not for the injury.
“In the Premier League season Harris came back and he played his part. From memory, I believe he scored against Fulham. But it was a bit-part role and he was linked with moves away quite a bit from then.
“It was inevitable he would leave after that season to go and play regular Championship football elsewhere.”
Harris himself remembered the frustrations of a lack of game-time at Cardiff.
In a 2019 interview, the winger said:
KADEEM HARRIS:
“We had a good relationship [he and Warnock]. It started off really well and then I got injured for a long period of time when the team got promoted.
“Ever since that time it felt like it didn’t matter what I could've done, I never felt like I got the same opportunity as some others.”
It was that summer, after relegation, that Harris, out of contract, moved on.
Dominic said of his departure: “The squad needed a little shake-up after relegation.
“It didn’t need major surgery, but I think everybody accepted there would need to be some changes.
“Warnock brought in Josh Murphy and Bobby Decordova-Reid at the start of the Premier League season. They were viewed as the players who would help Cardiff come straight back up after relegation.
“Reid actually ended up going to Fulham that summer, but there was still Hoilett, Mendez-Laing and Murphy ahead of Harris, and he signed Gavin Whyte from Oxford that summer.
“So I think it was just time for Harris to move on.”
Indeed, despite the reported interest from Warnock and Boro this summer, it was actually Warnock who advised Harris to move on.
That said, it was advice that made Harris respect the Boro boss highly, and leaves open the possibility that the two could reunite again at the Riverside.
KADEEM HARRIS:
Harris said in that 2019 interview: “He kind of advised that it was probably best for me to move on.
“He said ‘I'd have you here for years, but your chances might not be any more regular than they are now’. He likes me as a person and likes me as a player, so he advised me it was probably time to move on, he said ‘it's time to kick on now as a player and play some more regular football’.
“Not many other managers would have said that to me. I respect him for that.”
Harris had only just turned 26 when we joined Sheffield Wednesday. He was still a little wet behind the ears in terms of Championship experience.
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