Monday 29 December 2014 14:05, UK
Adam Bate looks at the factors that have led to Neil Warnock becoming the first Premier League manager to lose his job so far this season following his departure from Crystal Palace…
Sometimes managers, like politicians, can use fear as a weapon. Careful what you wish for. If somebody else was at the helm then you’d be even worse off. Down at the murky end of the Premier League table it can be a particularly useful tool with so much at stake.
Neil Warnock may well be a veteran in this game but that was a defensive mechanism he did not have at his disposal. Crystal Palace fans had already seen there could be another way. Warnock’s predecessor Tony Pulis had masterminded the mother of all turnarounds.
Palace were still in the relegation zone on New Year’s Day of last season but a coherent strategy was soon in place and five wins on the bounce in the spring saw the Eagles soar into mid-table. They lost just one of their last eight games to stay up in the Premier League for the first time.
As a result, it wasn’t so much that Pulis had raised expectations too high, but rather that he’d provided supporters with proof positive that under the right manager survival was more than possible for this group of players.
Of course, that the Welshman remains out of work and has immediately been installed among the bookmakers’ favourites to return to Selhurst Park only emphasises the fact that Pulis remained an ominous spectre looming over Warnock during his time at the club.
Most obviously, there was the contrast between the managerial records of the two men. Although ostensibly similar with their no-nonsense approach and schooling in the lower leagues, Pulis could point to a proud record of never having been relegated in his career.
Warnock’s history paints a rather different picture that suggests there’s a significantly lower ceiling to his capabilities. Relegated from the top flight in each of his two full seasons there, this perceptions also contributed to Queens Park Rangers dispensing with his services following an eight-game winless streak in early 2012.
When Warnock blamed successor Mark Hughes for QPR’s subsequent woes, assistant Mark Bowen was quick to respond. “It does stick in my throat a bit that Neil has lost another job and started throwing mud around,” Bowen told talkSPORT.
“When you look at Neil Warnock’s record I think the three times he’s been in the top leagues he’s been relegated twice, with Notts County and Sheffield United, and won the sum total of about 14 Premier League games.” Strong words and the sort of sentiments that strikes a chord with supporters – and chairmen – when things start to go wrong.
Indeed, all of this might have been deemed irrelevant had Warnock been showing signs of progress. Instead, three wins in his 16 games in charge, as well as just one win in the last 12, indicated that there was little hope of things going in the right direction.
Perhaps just as significantly, there appeared to be no grand plan for how the turnaround could be achieved. Instead, Warnock’s explanations focused on that last refuge for desperate men – luck – and the curious decision to downplay the progress made without him the previous season.
“I thought they had a lot of luck last year,” he told reporters. “I don’t see us having much luck this year.” They were words unlikely to impress supporters who’d so enjoyed last season’s campaign and, moreover, failed to inspire confidence that Warnock knew how to address the issues facing the team. Chants of ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’ greeted him during the Boxing Day home defeat to Southampton.
One thing Warnock does seem adamant about is the need for a new striker at Selhurst Park and he has claimed the club are pursuing at least three options. “We have some good strikers at the club but we have to be able to adapt and change the system so we have to try and find a striker that will give us another dimension.”
In a sense, that is sensible given that only bottom club Cardiff City scored fewer goals than Palace’s 33 last season. Their success was built on a solid defence – the seventh best in the Premier League – but it always seemed likely that more firepower would be needed.
Unfortunately for Palace, there is more to their struggles than a lack of goals. In fact, they’ve actually outscored eight Premier League teams so far this season. Meanwhile, only two teams have conceded more. Warnock has shown no signs of tightening an increasingly porous Palace defence.
Defenders such as Joel Ward are experiencing a dip in form after setting such high standards, while winger Jason Puncheon looks likely to fall some way short of his seven-goal tally from last season. Warnock’s solution is to sign new players when Pulis had shown what could be achieved by getting the best out of the ones he already has.
With the transfer window about to open, it seems Palace chairman Steve Parish has decided to start that search for a fresh solution of his own right at the top. It’s a gamble. But if it’s anything like as successful as his last mid-season appointment then Palace fans might just have reason to be glad it’s all over for Neil Warnock.
