Neil Warnock sacked by Crystal Palace

Neil Warnock was sacked as Crystal Palace boss after his team’s 3-1 Boxing Day defeat by Southampton

Neil Warnock has been sacked as Crystal Palace boss after yesterday’s 3-1 home defeat by high-flying Southampton.

The Eagles had been on a run of no wins in six Premier League games and have slipped down the table.

Palace are now in 18^th place in the Premier League table and in the relegation zone, just were they were at this point last season.

The difference is last season they had a plan and a direction under Tony Pulis. However, under Warnock there seems to have been no plan at all.

The veteran boss becomes the first Premier League manager of the season to lose his job and the logic is understandable.

Confirmation

A club statement confirmed Warnock’s exit. The statement read: “Crystal Palace Football Club can today confirm that Neil Warnock has been relieved of his duties and is no longer first-team manager. The club would like to put on record its thanks to Neil for all his hard work and energy over the past four months.”

Struggling

In truth Palace has struggled badly under Warnock this season. He came in on the back of former-boss Tony Pulis guiding the club from rock-bottom to midtable safety at the end of the season. The former-Sheffield United boss was never the right man to keep the momentum going.

Warnock’s top-flight record is not great. Under Warnock Palace won just three out of their 16 Premier League games this season and claimed just one win in their last 12. That record has relegation written all over it.

The fact that Warnock has been relegated from the top-flight with both Notts County and Sheffield United suggests that he just did not have enough managerial acumen to survive as a top-flight boss.

Neil Warnock is a decent run of the mill keep things ticking over boss, but most of his managerial achievements have come in the lower leagues. He is very much an old school boss and maybe the Premier League is just a step too far for him.

Shadow

Whoever came in to replace former-boss Tony Pulis was always going to be living in the Welshman’s shadow. Pulis did such a good job in his tenure at Selhurst Park that anybody replacing him would have to do a similar job to keep the Palace fans on side.

Pulis changed the whole atmosphere at the club. It went from all doom and gloom to fans actually believing their team could get out of trouble. In many ways Pulis and Palace was a match made in heaven. Unfortunately for both something went wrong behind the scenes and the two parted ways.

Both ends

Crystal Palace currently looks like a team that have been overindulging in the Christmas sherry, because they have problems at both ends of the field at the moment. Warnock has talked about the need for a new striker, yet it is in defence that the Eagles have struggled this season.

Only bottom club Leicester and QPR have conceded more goals than the Eagles this season, which is strange considering that under Pulis the Palace defence looked so solid.

The well-drilled backline that was present during Pulis’ stint at the club seem like a sieve with extra holes at the moment. The likes of Joel Ward and Scott Dann who performed so admirably last season do not even look like the same players.

Decisive

Palace chairman Steve Parish has been decisive and again sacked a manager mid-season, just like last season. The mid-season appointment of Tony Pulis ensured the Eagles survival in the top-flight last season.

Everybody connected with Palace will be hoping that their next boss is as successful as the former-Stoke boss.

Favourite

The irony is that Pulis is now actually second favourite with the bookmakers at odds of 6/1 to return to Selhurst Park as the next Palace boss. Only former-Spurs boss Tim Sherwood is shorter odds at 3/1 to be the next Palace boss.

A return for Pulis would depend on a number of issues. It was never really revealed why he left the club, but rumour and speculation suggested that the Palace board and owners were not prepared to back the Welshman in the transfer market.

Maybe everybody involved in the situation should now take stock and realise that Tony Pulis and Crystal Palace were an ideal match.

If not then Palace need to find a man that can have a similar sort of effect on the whole club that Pulis did and fast, because if not Palace are only going to continue to struggle and are likely end up back in the Championship in the near future.

Should Tony Pulis return to Crystal Palace?