Neil Warnock once named the best manager he ever came up against - it wasn't Sir Alex | OneFootball

When the veteran former manager was asked in 2025 to name the top three managers he ever came up against, Sir Alex Ferguson didn't make the top two.

When the veteran former Sheffield United and Queens Park Rangers manager, Neil Warnock, was asked to name the best that he'd come up against throughout his lengthy career, his answer didn't put the former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson in the top two.

He's been threatening to retire for a few years now, but at the age of 77 it seems that Warnock may finally have walked away from the managerial game for good. He's been employed by non-league club Torquay United as an occasional consultant over the last couple of years, and stepped in to take over control of the team after they sacked Paul Wotton at the end of February 2026.

This was only ever a temporary measure. Warnock was only in charge at Plainmoor for two weeks before the club appointed Jimmy Ball on a permanent basis, and the veteran manager was finally allowed to put his feet up after a managerial career that stretches back 46 years and a life in the professional game which stretches back almost sixty years.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian's veteran football writer Donald MacRae in August 2025, Warnock identified the managers who he ranked as the best he'd ever come across, and the most successful of the lot, the former Manchester United manager Ferguson, didn't even make the top two.

Pep Guardiola and Arsene Wenger took the top two positions as the best managers that Neil Warnock has ever faced

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When asked by MacRae to name the top three managers that he'd faced throughout his 46-year career, Neil Warnock surprised his interviewer by initially only giving two names, those of the former Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and the former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger, telling MacRae: "I’d say Pep one and Arsène Wenger two because he changed the whole concept of football."

Pressed on whom the third might be, MacRae reports that Warnock "grudgingly" added Ferguson to the list. The former manager's explanation for this related to a spat which stretches back almost two full decades and relates to the big controversy of 2007, the sale of striker Carlos Tevez to West Ham United, the third-party ownership issues which clouded the transfer, and his club Sheffield United's relegation from the Premier League that year.

Ferguson's Manchester United team had already been crowned the champions of England by the last weekend of the 2006-07 Premier League season, but with the race to avoid the drop extremely tight, Ferguson played a weakened team for their away match against West Ham United, who were in the same relegation scrap as Warnock's Sheffield United.

The Blades were relegated that day, and by the time of this interview, more than 18 years later, Warnock still clearly held a grudge against Ferguson, telling the interviewer: "I don’t really want to talk about him because I’ve not got anything good to say."

Neil Warnock was justified in being upset about the final weekend of the 2006-07 Premier League season

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Going into the final weekend of the 2006-07 Premier League season, Sheffield United were in a precarious position towards the bottom of the table, though this position wasn't unsalvageable. Charlton Athletic and Watford had already been relegated, leaving one relegation place to be avoided on the final day and three teams - Sheffield United, West Ham and Wigan Athletic - in danger.

For Warnock, the mathematics were very straightforward. Sheffield United were at home to Wigan, and a point from this match would secure their survival. Fail to win that, and they would still be saved so long as they matched West Ham's result, so long as the Hammers didn't turn over a three-goal swing if they both won, and West Ham were away to the newly-crowned Premier League champions, Manchester United. It looked as though they had layers of security built in to ensure their survival.

But on the day itself, everything went wrong for Warnock. Carlos Tevez scored the only goal of the match at Old Trafford in first-half stoppage time, with Sir Alex Ferguson having started the match with Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes on the bench. At almost exactly the same time, Wigan took a 2-1 lead against Sheffield United thanks to a penalty kick scored by David Unsworth who, ironically, had been released by the Blades the previous January.

Wigan and West Ham held on to win their matches, and Sheffield United were relegated by one goal on goal difference. Warnock resigned three days later, and it took twelve years for the Blades to reclaim a place in the Premier League.

League table from the Premier League

Sheffield United's anger over the circumstances surrounding the end of the 2006-07 season was justified. Carlos Tevez had been transferred from the Brazilian club Corinthians the previous summer, but the Premier League investigated the transfer and subsequently fined West Ham a record £5.5 million over the signings of Tevez and his compatriot Javier Mascherano. The player registrations were found to have been partially owned by the businessman Kia Joorabchian's Media Sports Investment agency, in contravention of rules on the third-party ownership of player registrations.

The Blades' feeling of injustice was only fuelled by what happened next. The club appealed to the Premier League that they should be reinstated in the top-flight for the following season, but this was rejected, and in addition to this, Tevez signed for Manchester United that summer. Sheffield United pursued West Ham for damages, and in March 2009, the clubs reached an out-of-court settlement whereby West Ham paid £20 million over the next five seasons as compensation.

It's clear that Neil Warnock's anger at Sir Alex Ferguson over playing a weakened team against West Ham had barely diminished when he spoke to The Guardian in 2025. Manchester United had an FA Cup final against Chelsea to play the following weekend, so there was a reason for Ferguson fielding an under-strength team.

But while it's impossible to say for certain that a full-strength Manchester United side would have done better against West Ham on the final day of the League season, it's not difficult to see how Warnock ended up as angry as he did over this, especially considering that the scorer of West Ham's goal that day headed to Old Trafford just a few weeks later. And it's certainly clear that he still bore this grudge, almost two decades on.