As I recall, most blades were delighted when we signed Akinbiyi and Horsfield. After the sale of Gray, we mostly agreed that it was a big ask for an ageing Shipperly to play week in week out as the target man and as well as he was doing, many advocated giving him a rest. I think it was absolutely right to bring in another big man. And how often do we say we should sign the best performing players in our league? Akinbiyi had been banging them in for Burnley and was the signing most fans wanted. I agree he shouldn’t have automatically replaced HMS for a run of games but sometimes you need to persuade a big money signing like that to come with the promise of first team football and Warnock probably felt under pressure to justify his expenditure by playing him. For once, we were satisfied that we had used January to get the extra firepower in to get us over the line rather than the usual fire sale to kill our season (Deane & Fjortoft the most obvious example).
When it became clear it wasn’t working, Warnock acknowledged his mistake (uncharacteristic I know) and went back to playing Shipps. If you read his latest book he acknowledges this and apparently told Shipps he would be back in the team for the remainder of the season to try to reassure him of his faith in him. He said in his younger days, he would have felt he had to stick with Akinbiyi having paid so much for him but as he was older and more experienced, he felt more able to admit his mistake and go back to what had worked previously.
I thimk that most would agree that signing Akinbiyi, Horsfield, Deane and Dyer was perhaps overdoing it a bit though. I got the impression he had fallen out with Kabba during the season hence the Dyer signing.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I just cannot understand the vitriol from some fans towards Warnock. He gave us the tripe assault season, a double over the pigs, a promotion, had a hand in setting up the academy, signed favourites like Brown, Webber, Hulse, Morgs, Kabba, Ifill, Page, Unsworth, Kenny, Geary and brought the likes of Monty, Tonge, Jags etc through the youth system. Yes he had his faults but he was our best and most successful manager since Bassett.