Obviously people are going to make comparisons, but I definitely think it's too early to say which will be the better manager in terms of what they've achieved at the Lane.
Warnock's main achievement was getting cheap, free and written-off players to do the business for him and earning their wages. The "nearly" season and promotion shows to what extent he made this work for him.
I think that's harsh. St Neil's two main achievments for me was to turn around a side who were truly terrible in weeks to a side who worked together (any comparisons?), and to get us to the brink of three trophies, even if one would have been a play-off Final. The promotion was the icing, especially after the barracking he had.
The promotion though was onthe back of an amazing run in the autumn. I'm not going to take anything away from his efforts, but it was almost unprecedented. For me the two other efforts were mightier tasks.
Linz said:
Blackwell on the other hand, has inherited some expensive players... James Beattie being the obvious first name to hand. Can he keep them? How will he fare in the transfer marker? Is he a wheeler-dealer like Warnock?
It's just too early to say.
Not convinced you're wrong, and as you say, can Blackie keep them? Why not?
Going back to St Neil, I can think of one player who was terrible under Heath, yet blossomed under Warnock, so not a St Neil 'rescue mission' if you like. Indeed, he was one for the boo-boys. One Saturday at home to Portsmouth, Shaun Murphy turned the ball behind for a corner, and received a true barracking. His header from the corner went to Devlin who ran 80 yards to score the only goal of the match.
A hero was born.
Now that we have a manager in St Neil's mould (or just a mouldy St Neil), then we can look forward again. One caveat though.
We were running, and we ended up stumbling. Let's at least walk properly before thinking about jogging.
