Johnny Phillips: Neil Warnock still knows just what makes players tick

The West Yorkshire club was 23rd in the Championship, only above bottom-placed Blackpool on goal difference, when Warnock made another dramatic return to the spotlight in mid-February.

“I miss the players more than anything, the day-to-day stuff in the dressing room,” the 74-year-old reflected this week, in our interview for this afternoon’s Soccer Saturday. The lure was too much, even for a man happily retired in Cornwall.

His new side’s final game under the caretaker management of Narcis Pelach ended with a 3-0 defeat at Stoke. Huddersfield registered just a single shot on target. It looked a lost cause on that cold winter’s night.

There was an immediate bounce the following Saturday when Warnock arrived in the dugout and oversaw a 2-1 win over Birmingham, but it was followed by a brutal reality check: a 5-0 thumping at Burnley. By mid-March, Huddersfield were seemingly doomed, six points from safety, level on points at the bottom with Wigan and Blackpool.

“We went to Burnley and there were a lot of things wrong,” Warnock explained. “Elementary mistakes really, not Championship, Sunday league players wouldn’t do it – losing your tackles, leaving your man. We had to go back to basics.”

Three wins and two draws in the last five games have lifted Warnock’s men out of the relegation places. We have been here before, of course. Seven years ago he took relegation favourites Rotherham on an 11-game Championship unbeaten run after being appointed in February to perform a similar rescue act. But he believes it would be a greater achievement to keep this Huddersfield team up.

“We had a lot of leaders at Rotherham, all down the spine,” Warnock explained. “They were a manager’s dream, we got them on board and it just took off. Here it has been a little bit different, we have got one or two like that but a lot of them are young and inexperienced.”

It is Warnock’s adaptability that has been his strength. Since his first steps into management at the age of 32 with Gainsborough Trinity in 1981 he has identified what makes different players tick. Whether it be a reliable stalwart like Phil Jagielka who worked with him for seven years at Sheffield United or a maverick like Adel Taarabt who was the unlikely talisman in QPR’s promotion in the 2010/11 season, Warnock finds a way to bring the best out of his players.

Warnock used the example Victor Moses to a couple of his current players this week, as he sought to bring the most out of a youthful squad in need of guidance. 15 years ago at Crystal Palace, the gifted teenager was struggling to make the most of his talents. On an away trip to Cardiff, Warnock became tired of his failure to put in the maximum effort and pulled him aside. “Victor, you’ve got to start working hard. If you don’t, you won’t get anything,” was the gist of their heart-to-heart.

Moses went on to win the Premier League title with Chelsea and still stays in touch with the manager who helped the penny drop. “The other night, after we won at Watford, he texted me and said, ‘Well done gaffer, I still remember Cardiff!’ and that means a lot to me”, Warnock revealed. “I have enjoyed making players feel important, I don’t think there are many players who haven’t enjoyed playing for me.

“And you need to have good staff, I’ve had good staff with me for most of my career. As you get older you delegate, you can’t do it all now. In my 20s I was up the motorway every night watching players and you just can’t do that now. But you still put the same effort in and get rewarded when you get a good result. You can’t replicate that feeling when the final whistle goes and you get that win.”

Winning down at the bottom end of the table is extremely difficult. Very often the culture of the club needs to change, with losing habits hanging around the place like a stale smell. Mick McCarthy - another senior manager but still a decade younger than Warnock – lost his job at Blackpool this week, unable to turn the tide. Yet Warnock marches on.

Since taking Scarborough into the Football League in 1988, followed by a double promotion with Notts County, taking them into the top flight in 1991, Warnock has plotted a career path that has taken him to all corners of the football map across all four divisions. Eight promotions and fourteen different league clubs across four decades and here we are. Still there is this determination and drive that seems impossible to fathom when talking about a septuagenarian.

So what about this ending? Warnock insists he will not stay on in the dugout at Huddersfield, regardless of whether the club remains in Championship. Instead, he floated the idea of a freelance role, parachuting into troubled zones to sort out those in need for a few months at a time.

“I like February, March, April, I wouldn’t write off that I’d do something at that time of year!” After so many seasons, Neil Warnock still can’t resist a challenge.