Neil Warnock signs new contract at Cardiff City until 2020
It has been a sensational year for Cardiff City and their success has been down to one man; Neil Warnock. He has just put pen to paper on a new two-year contract that sees him through until May 2020.
Having guided both Sheffield United and Queens Park Rangers to the Promised Land, Warnock is knowledgeable about how important this time of the season is and will see the contract extension as a reward for his hard work. But he knows the hard work is not over as Cardiff face Brentford this weekend as they look to make it nine games unbeaten.
The former Sheffield United man joined the club in October 2016 and has guided the club all the way up to 2nd place in the division, just six points behind once runaway leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers. His side keeps clawing away at the number one spot but realistically he will be hoping for an automatic promotion of any kind.
The Cardiff board fully believe Warnock is the man to carry on next season no matter what league they might be in and they are right to think so. He is still insisting that the playoffs are the aim for the Bluebirds but this will be a tactic to keep his players grounded and focused on the task in hand of playing in the Premier League for the first time since 2014.
Warnock has built a strong side at Cardiff, who are a brilliant collective group for one another. With the side scoring 50 goals this year and only conceding 27, the lowest in the league, they look strong enough for promotion. The form of Junior Hoillett will have impressed the fans the most as he has eight goals and eight assists in the league thus far.
As well as the manager getting a new deal, both assistant manager Kenny Blackwell and first-team coach Ronnie Jepson got new deals which further promotes the chairman, Mehmet Dalman’s beliefs that the manager and his backroom staff are the future of Cardiff for the next two years.
Owner Vincent Tan made a statement to the club website about how happy he was with how things were going on the pitch and the recent January transfer window success. Well, with a four-game winning streak and bringing in several youth players as well as spending £6 million on Bolton’s top goal scorer Gary Madine, it was not a bad time to be the owner of Cardiff City.
Warnock deserves all the plaudits after his side finished 12th last season and he really has transformed the side into the promotion-chasing side they are today.