\n<\/p>\n
\u2018I<\/span> was at Crystal Palace and I wanted a centre-half,\u201d Neil Warnock says as, after 45 years as a manager, he describes how football has changed since his rise from non-league to the Premier League. \u201cI sent Ronnie Jepson, my assistant, to Scotland to watch a centre-half. And he came back and said he would cost us around \u00a34m, but he was very good. So I told the people at Crystal Palace.\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock resists identifying Steve Parish, Palace\u2019s chairman, by name for he is deep in a story that illustrates how data analytics is not always infallible. \u201cHe asked for 24 hours and went to the data people. The next day he said: \u2018We don\u2019t want to go ahead.\u2019 I asked him why and he said they don\u2019t think he\u2019s quick enough. I said: \u2018He might not look quick enough, but he\u2019s in second gear in Scotland. If he had to sprint, he\u2019d sprint.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n I already know Warnock is remembering how he missed signing Virgil van Dijk and, as we\u2019re having an enjoyable knockabout, I ask if even a great player such as Franz Beckenbauer might have been dismissed by the stats men. The German sweeper had pace and tenacity, but his regal vision meant he could intercept a pass without needing to produce a crunching tackle. \u201cCorrect,\u201d Warnock replies. \u201cBeckenbauer would never have got on, would he, with the data? He\u2019d have been playing Sunday league, Beckenbauer.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we didn\u2019t sign Van Dijk. He went to Southampton [for \u00a313m]. I was with Cardiff a few years later, when we got to the Premier League, and I came up against him at Liverpool [who signed Van Dijk for \u00a375m]. He came up and said: \u2018Mr Warnock, you could have signed me\u2019. I swore and said: \u2018I bet you were glad that you were too slow for me.\u2019 We had a laugh together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt just shows you. They can sign these great players on a computer but I was at Middlesbrough and they said they\u2019d got a left-back for me,\u201d Warnock goes on. \u201cI watched him for five minutes and said: \u2018He can\u2019t defend. I don\u2019t want him.\u2019 They said: \u2018But his stats show he\u2019s got the most tackles, the most headers.\u2019 I said: \u2018Are you listening? He can\u2019t defend.\u2019 Managers now are more or less coaches and they\u2019re letting the recruitment team pick the players. But the data people don\u2019t see the character of the person or other aspects of his game.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Warnock photographed for the Guardian when manager at QPR in 2011. \u2018I got Cardiff in the Premier League. Look where they are now.\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Tom Jenkins\/The Guardian<\/p>\n A freewheeling conversation with Warnock moves from memories of drinking pink champagne with Brian Clough to a bitter fallout with Sir Alex Ferguson. It includes recollections of eight promotions, five relegations, and a lot of pride. \u201cI survived 1,627 games,\u201d Warnock says. \u201cWhen I started [at Gainsborough Town in 1980] I just wanted to survive a season. Let alone 45 years as a manager. Fucking hell. Frightening, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock\u2019s managerial career ended in March last year. He resigned after Aberdeen beat Kilmarnock 3-1 to reach the semi-finals of the Scottish Cup and, while he won\u2019t discuss the reasons for his abrupt departure from Pittodrie after eight games, Warnock didn\u2019t like off-field interference in his work. He is now a part-time consultant at Torquay United and hopes to help the club return to the Football League. But, in a sign of his diluted focus, the 76-year-old\u2019s attention is also on his upcoming tour, when he will appear at the London Palladium.<\/p>\n Warnock sounds suitably gobsmacked in his unvarnished Sheffield accent. \u201cWhen I was a kid, my mum had multiple sclerosis and my dad worked in the steelworks. But on a Sunday night I used to sit in front of my mum in her wheelchair and she played with my hair while as a family we watched Sunday Night at the London Palladium. So when these shows were being discussed I just said: \u2018I\u2019d love to do the Palladium.\u2019 I didn\u2019t suppose we could, but I\u2019ll be thinking so much of my mum and dad.<\/p>\n \u201cIn those days your dad never told you he loved you. It was macho. But he was a crane driver in the steelworks and after his 16-hour shifts he would come home to a wife with multiple sclerosis and three kids in a two-bedroom semi. You don\u2019t appreciate what he must have gone through until years later.\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock\u2019s distinctly human stories prompted Pep Guardiola to invite him into the Manchester City dressing room. Towards the end of last season Warnock spoke to a group of multimillionaire footballers, including Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland, and he grins now. <\/strong>\u201cThe first thing I said is: \u2018I bet you lot think yourselves lucky you\u2019ve not got me as your manager, because you\u2019d be kicking the ball from there to there and it wouldn\u2019t be on the ground.\u2019 They all creased up. I said a few other things that made them laugh. Afterwards Pep said he\u2019d enjoyed it so much and that you don\u2019t get that now in football \u2013 the humour. He said: \u2018Everything\u2019s so methodical, so data-driven, blah-blah-blah.\u2019 He said we miss that human element.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>A young Sheffield United supporter makes his feelings clear before Christmas in 2023.<\/span> Photograph: PA Wire\/PA<\/p>\n Warnock interviewed Guardiola for Sky Sports and, despite their mutual affection, there is an amusing clash of philosophies. Guardiola cackled through much of the interview but he looked almost bewildered when Warnock said: \u201cWe love man-marking.\u201d After Guardiola said \u201cYou love, huh? Why?\u201d Warnock explained that, as his teams were technically inferior, they had to try and nullify the opposition. \u201cAnd the players,\u201d Guardiola asked, \u201cthey support it? They like it?\u201d Warnock\u2019s immediate reaction \u2013 \u201cwell, they had to\u201d \u2013 makes Guardiola smile again. As Warnock tells me now, \u201cI never had a good team but I always had a good dressing room.\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock was old school. \u201cWhen I were manager at Palace,\u201d he says, \u201cMan City brought down two buses full of staff. I thought: \u2018Bloody hell, I\u2019ve never seen \u2019owt like it.\u2019 I got our kit man to chuck a bucket of cold water on the floor in their dressing room to make it scruffy as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n But there were occasions when Warnock was helpless. \u201cAt Cardiff we played City [in 2018] and had a couple of shots. It was 0-0 after 30 minutes and I\u2019m thinking: \u2018we\u2019re doing well here\u2019. Then we went in at half-time 2-0 down and after Bernardo Silva scored the second I\u2019m saying out loud on the bench: \u2018What a goal. That\u2019s unbelievable.\u2019 And I\u2019m the opposition manager!\u201d<\/p>\n Cardiff lost 5-0 and were relegated that season when a controversial 2-1 defeat by Chelsea hastened their demise in May 2019. <\/strong>\u201cIt\u2019s a lonely job, being a manager,\u201d Warnock says. \u201cI felt very lonely at times and probably the loneliest was at Cardiff when Chelsea got a goal that should have been disallowed for three yards offside. I knew that would relegate us. The dressing room was desolate because the lads had given me absolutely everything. I can tell you now the linesman was Ed Smart and Craig Pawson refereeing. I can see it as if it were yesterday. I\u2019ll be looking at that on my grave.<\/p>\n \u201cI told the referee and linesman: \u2018I wish you could come in my dressing room and see the desolation because you didn\u2019t do your jobs right.\u2019 We didn\u2019t deserve to go down that year.\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock was fined \u00a320,000 for complaining about the officiating but now his attention reverts to Guardiola. \u201cI noticed how much he was having to bite his tongue when you looked at the goals City conceded towards the end of last season. It wasn\u2019t anything tactical. They were just bad mistakes. I knew it hurt him but he\u2019s got the bit between his teeth again now. I\u2019m going to be interested in seeing how they go this season because they\u2019ll be a threat. Liverpool have spent all that money and Arsenal are spending as well, but Pep\u2019s signed two or three good players. He\u2019s the best manager since I\u2019ve been around and I think he\u2019ll prove it again.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Football Daily<\/span><\/p>\n Kick off your evenings with the Guardian’s take on the world of football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n When I ask Warnock for the top three managers he has faced, he responds with just two names. \u201cI\u2019d say Pep one and Ars\u00e8ne Wenger two because he changed the whole concept of football. Oh my God, his intelligence.\u201d Warnock and Wenger also had an unlikely bromance. \u201cHe liked me and he respected me. It was said that Wenger never had any managers in his office after a game but he always invited me. On one occasion I even took my kids in and we had a picture in his office.\u201d He frowns when I suggest it\u2019s strange Ferguson has not been added to his top three. \u201cI\u2019d have to put Fergie in,\u201d he says grudgingly. \u201cBut I\u2019d have Pep and Ars\u00e8ne before him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Pep Guardiola and then Cardiff manager Neil Warnock at their 2018 FA Cup meeting.<\/span> Photograph: Nick Potts\/PA<\/p>\n Warnock once spoke warmly of Ferguson and how the Scot would write to him encouragingly after every promotion and relegation. But his attitude has hardened now. \u201cI don\u2019t really want to talk about him because I\u2019ve not got anything good to say.\u201d Is that because Ferguson played a weakened Manchester United side against West Ham in the final game of the season in 2007? \u201cAbsolutely. Unforgivable, in my eyes. Same with [Liverpool\u2019s] Rafa Ben\u00edtez. He played the kids at Fulham that same year.\u201d<\/p>\n The pain for Warnock was intensified because Sheffield United, his boyhood team, were relegated after they lost at home to Wigan and West Ham stayed up after beating United by a solitary goal scored by Carlos Tevez, whose registration was thought to be ineligible by Warnock and many others. Has he spoken to Ferguson since that disastrous day? \u201cNo,\u201d Warnock says with icy finality.<\/p>\n He is happier discussing another managerial icon in Clough. \u201cI was at Notts County [between 1989 and 1993] and Cloughie used to walk past our little training ground to get to their 10 acres where they had a fantastic training facility. He would be with [Clough\u2019s assistant at Nottingham Forest] Alan Hill and a black labrador. Cloughie would walk across my pitch. He never walked around it and nobody said \u2019owt. He looked round at what we were doing, shook his head and walked on. Brilliant!\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock laughs before becoming more serious again. \u201cWe drew 1-1 at their place and at one of our lunches, he said: \u2018You don\u2019t realise, son, but it\u2019s a remarkable job for a club like Notts County to be competing with us in the top division. It\u2019ll never happen again, what you\u2019ve done.\u2019 And of course Notts County went from the old First Division to non-league football.<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018When I was at Notts County, Cloughie would walk across my pitch. He looked round at what we were doing, shook his head, and walked on. Brilliant!\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had eight promotions and if I went back to these clubs tomorrow, I\u2019d get a great reception. I got Cardiff in the Premier League. Look where they are now. To get Notts County in the top flight? If I had a fashionable name or I were a fashionable manager, I think I\u2019d have got more acknowledgment. But they gave me an award this year at the Football League, for my contribution to the EFL.\u201d<\/p>\n Warnock sinks back in his chair and smiles: \u201cI thought: \u2018Bloody hell. It\u2019s about time!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Neil Warnock: Are You With Me? is at Opera House, Manchester on 29 August, London Palladium on 18 September and Ashton Gate Stadium, Bristol on 28 September. Tickets at www.fane.co.uk\/neil-warnock<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018I was at Crystal Palace and I wanted a centre-half,\u201d Neil Warnock says as, after 45 years as a manager, he describes how football has changed since his rise from non-league to the Premier League. \u201cI sent Ronnie Jepson, my assistant, to Scotland to watch a centre-half. And he came back and said he would<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[7203,7201,7202,779,7199,2683,2547,7200],"class_list":{"0":"post-13530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ferguson","9":"tag-guardiola","10":"tag-ire","11":"tag-job","12":"tag-lonely","13":"tag-management","14":"tag-neil","15":"tag-warnock"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}