Clarke

Why Neil Warnock should be the next England manager

So Roy Hodgson has left the building and now we are wondering who the next England manager will be. You’ve seen the names suggested. Gareth Southgate, Eddie Howe, Alan Pardew.

And don’t you think they are all a bit uninspiring? A mixture of people who haven’t done anything yet, or have had their chance to do something and then flopped. We have a serious problem with a lack of good quality English managers which we will need to sort at some point.

But right here, right now, I want to tell you we do actually have the perfect man for the job and his name is Neil Warnock.

Oh I know that you are probably laughing at me right now. After all, he’s never managed a big club. His CV includes Crystal Palace, QPR and Sheffield United, decent sized clubs with passionate fan bases, but nothing compared to an Arsenal or a Liverpool. Why should he get the job?

Well firstly, his record. Throughout his career, with a few blemishes I’ll admit, he’s won. Consistently. Whether it was in the league to get a number of teams promoted or in the cups, which we’ll get to, his teams have won. They won’t win in the prettiest ways but no one remembers how you won, they remember that you won.

And with a new managerial appointment, you want a guy who can sort out the biggest problem that was caused by the previous one. Well if you watched last night’s match, you’ll have seen that England were completely aimless with no idea what to do, so they simply wandered around with the ball.

Warnock wouldn’t have that. All of his teams have a solid, identifiable game plan. It’s nothing spectacular, it’s all based around being solid at the back, but I can guarantee that every England side under him would be well drilled and know exactly what they were doing. No passing it back to the defenders when we’ve got men in the box.

And I’ve already mentioned his winning record, but look at what Warnock has been able to do in cup competitions. Essentially, the World Cup and Euros are cup competitions, so in reality we should be looking at how managers do in the League Cup and FA Cup. And while Warnock has never won one, he consistently took Sheffield United far into the cup competitions and to both semi finals one year. And he also has one of the best play off records in the country, having one through them on four different occasions. This is a man who can handle big matches.

Now with Warnock having not managed a big club, he hasn’t really had a taste of managing big names and big talents. Or so you think. Remember when Adel Taarabt was meant to be the next big thing rather than the washed up Benfica reserve he is now? That was because not only could Warnock handle his rather lazy personality well, but he was smart enough to change his tactics and build his side around him to exploit his ability. His teams aren’t always workmanlike in their construct, sometimes they utilise a bit of style.

The thing that Warnock will add to England more than anything else is that will to not give up. In one of the few games I went to as a neutral this season, I saw Neil Warnock’s Rotherham United go 3-0 down to Derby County after the Rams went nuts for ten minutes. At the 80th minute, I saw fans leave, thinking it was over. It should have been. Yet even though Warnock had only been appointed at the club a few weeks earlier, they refused to give up and launched a sensational come back to make it 3-3.

That’s what England need, that passion to win at all costs and the belief that they will win, even if they are losing 5-0 to Spain and half the team has been sent off. That’s what Warnock would bring to England and why he should be the manager.

He’s better than Gareth Southgate at least.

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