Future is still unclear for boss Warnock
Blades manager accepts he may be forced to end career away from Bramall Lane
Neil Warnock: Takes his Sheffield United side to Arsenal today.
SHEFFIELD UNITED'S Neil Warnock has admitted that the final chapter of his managerial story may yet unfold away from Bramall Lane.
Warnock is out of contract next summer and has still not been offered a new deal. The Blades manager could even be axed if his side are still bottom of the Premiership table at Christmas.
Chairman Kevin McCabe has hinted at a possible new role as director of football but Warnock, 57, is not ready to hang up his tracksuit just yet.
Speaking ahead of today's Premiership trip to Arsenal, Warnock said: "There are still no plans in place beyond the end of this season, we are just playing it by ear.
"I think Kevin McCabe would like me to go upstairs when I call it a day but I don't know if I could do that. That's going to be the hardest thing. Do I go upstairs or do I go to another club?"
Warnock, who was disappointed not to be offered a new deal after steering the club to promotion last season, says he could have joined a Championship club last summer.
After five games of the new season, he has still to taste a Premiership victory and knows that pressure will mount if results do not start improve soon.
The decline of Leeds United's Kevin Blackwell and West Bromwich Albion's Bryan Robson this week has already highlighted the growing lack of security in the management business.
Warnock, who is now among the elite group of managers to have clocked up 1,000 competive games, said: "Management has changed so much more due to the pressures, the money involved, and whether you are a success or a failure. I think the days of managers reaching 1,000 games are all but over.
"I picked up last weekend's newspapers and it was all about Kevin Blackwell or (Huddersfield Town's) Peter Jackson – I think I counted eight or nine sets of fans who were wanting their managers out and we are only talking about September.
"I am not saying there wasn't anything untoward between Bryan Robson and his chairman but when you are three points off the play-offs after seven or eight games, I don't think sacking the manager is either fair or realistic."
Intentionally or not, Warnock admitted that he would 'understand' a club choosing to sack a manager whose team was bottom of the table after 15-20 games.
Whether that is the crunch time for the Blades as this season unfolds remains unclear.
"I can understand it (the sack) if it is me at the bottom of the league or Blacky second from the bottom and it is 15-20 games," said Warnock. "That is how it is in football. If I leave this club in the 'wrong' way, I will probably go and have a new job somewhere. I would think there are a lot of clubs in the Championship who would have me without a contract.
"It would have to be a good club – and there were quite a number I could probably have gone to in the summer if I wanted – but the Premiership was the place to be.
"To be fair I have had nearly seven years at Sheffield United and I have had Kevin's support at crucial times.
"I have said to him on a couple of occasions 'do you want me to go, would it make any easier for you?' but he has always said 'no, you're the one, and I will help you out next year.' There are not many boards like that."
If today's trip to the impressive new Emirates Stadium was not already daunting enough for the Blades, the absence of nine players through injury will make it an exercise in damage limitation.
The Blades have not beaten Arsenal on their last 13 visits to the capital and have met three times during Warnock's reign – losing an FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford and a fifth-round replay on penalties.
Warnock said: "All the pundits are waiting for Arsenal to batter somebody.
"Even though we are decimated with injuries, I would rather be going to Arsenal than, with all respect, Southend United.
"Of all the clubs in the country, if I had to pay money to watch one, it would be Arsenal.
"It's like watching a Rolls Royce," he said.
"I would say we are a cross between a Ford Anglia and a BMW."
