Neil Warnock: Taking over a struggling team and trying to engineer a rescue is tough â at QPR I made decisions that proved crucial I told Taarabt that no matter how badly he played he would stay in the team NEIL WARNOCK Author Biography Saturday 22 February 2014 The sack is a sad fact of life for football managers. I have been axed three times. The chairman at Notts County was on record as saying itâs the worst thing they ever did. Within a couple of years they were one game from losing league status. At Plymouth I fell out with the chairman. When that happens there is only one winner. At QPR two years ago I was gutted. After we had gone through all the tough games before Christmas there were eight or nine games coming up that were all winnable. I felt I had earned the right to those games. Look at the Premier League today. Three of the bottom four, Fulham, Cardiff City and West Bromwich Albion, all have new managers. And they are all gambles. A couple of the teams around them, Sunderland and Crystal Palace, have changed managers this season, too. This is what happens at struggling teams. Tony Pulis has done a great job at Selhurst Park when most thought they were certs to go down. The fans are brilliant at Palace and Tony has made a couple of loan signings, Tom Ince being one, who have real pace. Plus he has got them organised. Thatâs the key. When I joined QPR in March 2010 we were rock bottom and heading for League One. We conceded too many and didnât score enough, which was a recipe for relegation. Within 24 hours of watching them I decided to build my team around Adel Taarabt and Ale Faurlin, an Argentine lad who is the best midfield player I have ever had. Taarabt has tremendous ability, as he showed for Milan the other night. Everybody warned me he would get me the sack, but I could see goals in him and that is what we needed. I told him that no matter how badly he played he would be in the team until the end of the season. He was fabulous for me. I had to adapt a system, which meant he didnât get the ball in his own half, where he would lose it, and with Faurlin keeping everything moving in the middle of the park it worked. It will be interesting to see how Fulham respond to Felix Magath. Owen Hargreaves told me the players are in for a shock with this fella. He is a hard taskmaster. He does a few odd things, which might sound weird coming from me. He takes the players out for surprise, two-hour runs and once when he was at Bayern, made them train in the dark when they came back from a game. Letâs see how they put up with that. Sometimes when Iâm watching managers on television and I see all that anxiety I realise that I donât miss the job as much as I thought. Manuel Pellegrini and Arsène Wenger have had a tough couple of days. I feel more sympathy for Wenger than I do for Pellegrini, because I think Arsenal gave it a real go. Wenger was unlucky. His team were fabulous. Manchester City, on the other hand, were almost in awe of Barcelona to start with. That was disappointing after the way they have played this season. The match was almost a let-down. Back to Arsenal. The penalty miss from Mesut Ãzil killed it for them. You have to score when you are on top. A goal would have lifted Ãzil, the team, the fans, everybody in the stadium. Missing with such a soft penalty-kick had the opposite effect. Ãzil looks like he needs a rest to me. If he played for Bayern he would have had one. While Arsenal were running themselves into the ground over Christmas and the new year, the Bayern boys were enjoying a month off, two weeks at home with family and then a spell in Qatar playing a few practice games in the sun. No wonder they looked like they could run all night. But there is no shame losing to this Bayern team and if I were Arsène I would be really proud. Remember, after that defeat at home to Villa in the first game of the season everybody was getting stuck into him, saying itâs time to go and all this carry-on. Who would have said then that at this stage, with 12 games of the season left, Arsenal would be only one point off the top of the league? What they have done this season has been fantastic and Wenger deserves a lot of praise for that. Talking of praise, have you been watching our curlers this week? Pity the lads could not get gold yesterday but Iâll take a silver lining.
At the time I felt it was the right decision however feel he was badly let down in the summer before that when the goons wouldn't sanction any signings & it then ended up making last minute panic buys some of which are still costing us now.
Midget Bernie will get his come-uppance on trial in Germany soon, hopefully he'll get some porridge...
Read his book and it was a pile of sh**e and lies... Lost a lot of respect for him after that Always gratefull for what he did for us, but wish he would go away for a long time...Nothing in his career has ever been his fault...apparently... Hands up all those who have received thier reply to thier e-mail the sent ( as he promised)....didnt think so.... did a job and got paid well for it...no sympathy here im afraid !
Which was the incorrect decision: dismissing Warnock, or appointing Hughes? Probably more the latter.
If we are going to start looking back (yet again) I would just like to say that I believe that Tommy Docherty should have been given more time in 1979/80.
Rich little poison dwarves like Bernie dont go to jail i'm afraid, he has the money to buy his way out of it. And if he can't buy his way out, at the age he is he will just keep appealing until he croaks.I dont think we will see the little s**t ever do a single day. !!!!!
The sack was correct, even too late IMO but obviously Hughes was a disaster. It makes me laugh when people can't separate the two decisions. Its we get rid of zamora and replace him with macheda. You'd have to be mental to bang on about how bad it was to dump zamora.
Flyer wanted him sacked just after we won the league. (Whom to replace him with, he had no idea of course ) He don't half like blowing his own trumpet though does he? Did him and Toad Face go to the same school or summat?
What I said back then Nines, and (sorry) many times since. If we lose a few more now and the Board decide a change is necessary to give us a chance of promotion, Colin will be the best bet for me for the last 10 games or so.
I agree about not going back to old Managers Swords, and I think Colin is probably getting too old to want a long term job again anyway. But I'm thinking mainly here of just a short contract to the end of the season if Arry doesn't turn it around again quick, and the Board think the investment of paying off Arry for a last promotion shot with a new Manger is worthwhile. TF's Twitt yesterday suggests he may bring in a new Manager if Arry and the players don't get some points quick.
He had appeared to lose the dressing room prior to his sacking, so it was probably the right call. However, he deserves immense praise for recognising and utilising the talents of Taarabt and Faurlin. At least he had a plan!!
