Rotherham United

Warnock: ‘Rotherham survival amongst my biggest achievements’

Former Rotherham United manager Neil Warnock has told Radio Yorkshire that the Millers’ survival in the Championship last season ranks amongst his biggest achievements in football.

The 67-year-old took over the Millers’ hotseat in February with the club firmly entrenched in the relegation zone but an eleven-game unbeaten run saw them clinch survival before the last game of the season. Reflecting on his time at the New York Stadium, Warnock said,

“I think it has to be one of my biggest achievements in the game, especially given where we were in the table when I joined.

“Within a week we were six points adrift and you began to look at the fixture list and see all the sides in the top eight upcoming.

“But that didn’t faze me, I just said that we would have to go out and win those games.”

And the Millers responded in fine fashion with stunning victories over promotion chasers Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesbrough and Ipswich Town, before sealing survival with a 4-0 thrashing of Milton Keynes Dons. Warnock recalled,

“You look back at those games and they were great memories but victories we deserved because we were playing good football.

“Then you had the game against Derby where we were three-down with such little time left but managed to pull it back.

“And to get the result to stay up at Milton Keynes in front of 3,000 or so travelling fans was special because their support deserved it.”

The former Sheffield United chief admits that the hard work came on the training ground and working on the players’ mentality.

“It was pretty bleak when I took over, they had almost accepted relegation.

“We had to get them organised because they had lost confidence – even though there were some good players.

“It was about getting good habits back into their games and a lot of credit goes to Kevin Blackwell and Ronnie Jepson for the work they did on the training ground.”

Warnock believes that new Millers’ boss Alan Stubbs can be the man to take Rotherham onto the next level.

“Rotherham pushed me for a decision and they had offered me a fabulous contract.

“But it would have been the wrong reason to carry on – it needed a younger manager like Alan Stubbs to come in.

“The stadium is excellent but the infrastructure behind that is non-league and Alan is the sort of manager who can see that through so that the club can attract better players.”

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