Neil Warnock raring for return to Bramall Lane as Cardiff close on promotion from Championship
Monday 2 April 2018 18:33, UK
Neil Warnock often describes playing Sheffield Wednesday as his most important game of the season, but you imagine his biggest will always be a return to Bramall Lane.
Not that he's had much of an opportunity to make the trip lately. The Blades' long stay in League One means that it's been almost eight years since Warnock last took a side to Sheffield United, and there's plenty riding on the game for both sides.
Cardiff have created a large gap between themselves and third-placed Fulham but the trip to Sheffield United is quickly followed by games against Wolves and Aston Villa, which leaves potential for that seven-point gap to disappear fairly quickly.
Sheffield United, meanwhile, were above Cardiff and top of the league at one stage earlier in the season, but have struggled for consistency since and Chris Wilder's side find themselves in ninth before Easter Monday's games - although they're only a point off the play-offs.
Warnock was the last man before Wilder to achieve a promotion with Sheffield United, when he took them into the Premier League in 2006, and he's not the only person to draw comparisons between himself and his spiritual successor at Bramall Lane.
"I see a lot of myself in him," Warnock told the Yorkshire Post earlier this season. "United is a club that always needs someone in charge who gets the club, who knows what it is all about. Chris definitely does.
"Chris has got them firing. Like my Sheffield United team, he has made them hard to beat, but also made sure there is plenty of excitement - plenty of 'oohs' and 'aahs' in games. His side like to make things happen.
"What I also like about Chris is how he come up the hard way through management, again a bit like me. I was at Scarborough in non-League and Chris was at Halifax. The experiences you go through in a job like that really help later in your career, as I am sure Chris would tell you."
On the face of things it will be business as usual for Warnock on Monday night, and he'll be treating it as another step on his way to yet another promotion of a remarkable managerial career.
Inwardly, however, it is likely to be a more emotional trip for Warnock, who wouldn't have ever expected to go nearly a decade without a trip back to Bramall Lane, and especially not again as he approaches his 70th birthday.
"It won't be an easy game for him," said Sky Sports EFL expert David Prutton. "They'll no doubt be a lot of familiar faces around there, with people he's known for a very long time. But for him it will be business first and you can see how proud he is of his Cardiff team and how the players have done.
"For him this kind of success is like a drug and it's one he wants to stay addicted to. That drive will see his team over the line again.
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"He's a devout Blade and his heart bleeds red and white. He'll see a lot of himself in Wilder in the fact they're both extremely passionate Sheffield lads and they're both very passionate about their teams."
Devout Blade or not, Warnock is not the kind of man who will have any regrets whatsoever if his Cardiff side hammer a nail into the coffin of Sheffield United's play-off hopes with victory on Monday night.
Don't miss the Sky Bet Championship clash between Sheffield United and Cardiff on Easter Monday, live on Sky Sports Football and Main Event from 7.30pm
