A farewell to Neil Harris, a good guy who lost his grip and could never escape Neil Warnock's shadow at Cardiff City [Wales online] Excellent article

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A farewell to Neil Harris, a good guy who lost his grip and could never escape Neil Warnock's shadow at Cardiff City

The Bluebirds have parted ways with Neil Harris and our fan columnist Scott Johnson has given his views on the manager's time at the club

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Neil Harris has left his post as Cardiff City manager (Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency)
A couple of years ago, almost to the day, Neil Harris was in charge of Millwall when they entertained Everton in the FA Cup. Trailing 2-1 with 15 minutes to go, Millwall’s Jake Cooper scored an equaliser using his arm, which should have been disallowed, but stood.

Amidst all the anger and confusion, they showed a replay on the big screen at The Den and Harris totally lost the plot. His anger was aimed at the stadium technicians and he colourfully bellowed at them to turn it off. Millwall went on to win 3-2.

I’ve thought about that incident a lot recently. There is any number of ways you could react to something like that and I feel that the way Harris reacted was somehow telling. He is a very modern manager, in the good and bad sense. He is desperate to succeed, and that’s a good thing, but his desperation, especially in this particular instance, was palpable.

Football is littered with a new breed of managers who are looking to make a name for themselves and will do whatever it takes to make it. Their reputation must be protected, at all costs. Garry Monk is probably the most notable example of this, but you can add the likes of Frank Lampard and Tim Sherwood to the mix, too.

They all have a Teflon aspect that, while understandable in their fledgling career, is unattractive and unsympathetic. They only ever take responsibility with strings attached. ‘This is my fault, but…’ then list a number of mitigating factors to try and wriggle free of the hook they’re on.

I like Harris and I can imagine him interviewing well. He is confident, driven, smart and warm. When he arrived, he had an intuitive understanding of Cardiff’s failings, which at the time was primarily a lack of application. During his first game, he patted Nathaniel Mendez-Laing on the backside to encourage him to track back.

You don’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need and Harris, despite being an underwhelming appointment, aimed to set higher standards, on and off the pitch. Results were mixed and a thumping defeat at QPR 12 months ago was the first big body blow of his Cardiff career.

He recovered from that and what Harris achieved post-lockdown was remarkable. Bookended by impressive wins against Leeds and Fulham, both of whom were eventually promoted, his vision for Cardiff had crystalised and they looked a force to be reckoned with.

Rather than bask in Cardiff’s turnaround, he instead stressed that he wanted more. That Cardiff could be better. It never happened. Little did we know that they had already peaked.

It’s hard to try and rationalise what has happened this season because Cardiff barely resemble the side that stormed the top six last year. The tempo and intensity has dropped off a cliff, individual mistakes have gone through the roof and Cardiff have been predictably unpredictable.

Until recently, where they’ve just got progressively worse.

Harris tried to get Cardiff to hold on to the ball more, but despite his best efforts, the more possession they enjoyed, the worse they tended to play. It is the basics that often lets Cardiff down, like simply passing from A to B. That is a problem that pre-dates Harris and still remains.

As I was scrolling through social media on Wednesday night, I noticed that Harris’ sixth consecutive loss coincided with Neil Warnock recording his sixth win in a row over Nottingham Forest. Warnock left big boots to fill and he still looms large over Cardiff.

From day one, Harris was compared to Warnock, who is currently sat just outside the play-off places with Middlesbrough, and it was a losing battle. While their favoured brand of football share similarities, that is where they end.

Warnock has seen it all and done it all. He is comfortable in his own skin, whereas Harris’ proved rather thin at times. Warnock knew that Cardiff needed him far more than he needed Cardiff and that reflected in his attitude. He always had one foot out the door because he knew that other opportunities would await.

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Harris was compared to Neil Warnock from day one (Image: Getty Images)

Harris has taken all the blame and paid the price. The manager always does, but there are few players in that squad that emerge with much credit from this season and all will be forgiven if they start performing for the new boss, but their poor form should certainly not be forgotten.

Cardiff are back in the market and the thought of them hiring a new manager always fills me with dread because I don’t think they really know what they’re looking for. This ultimately remains a squad in Warnock’s image, despite the best efforts of Harris, and changing that remains the greatest challenge.

Harris desperately wanted to succeed and if it was possible to will your way to victory, he would have taken Cardiff back up.

Instead, he may well have been the right manager at the wrong time, but I wish him well for the future because he was a good guardian of the club and remains one of the good guys.
I think Harris knew that he was fortunate to get the Cardiff job and that it may have been the biggest opportunity of his career. As a result it felt like he was always on edge and never truly comfortable.

Part of the reason for that is because his appointment served to demonstrate that unpopular appointments are managing with a handicap and if the job itself isn’t already big enough, that certainly doesn’t help.

The sad truth is that some were gunning for Harris from the off because he was deemed not worthy and they were waiting for him to fail. Judging by some of the names being bandied about, I feel that more disappointment may be just around the corner.

In the end, Harris’ sacking came as a relief, for all involved. I’m glad they put him out of his misery because it looked like it was taking a toll on him. The Coventry and Wycombe defeats could easily have proved sackable offences, but, rightly or wrongly, he was backed a little longer, which only inflicted more damage on Cardiff’s already desperately disappointing season in the end.


 
thought he was losing the plot a bit after we played them and he was moaning about us just kicking the ball over their heads. When they'd spent the entire game just booting it up to that big'n they've got up top and we'd had mcnair stepping out of defence to set up attacks.

Felt really weird and completely devoid of any self-awareness. I think when managers start making excuses like that they know they're out of their depth a bit.

He isn't alone though as the article correctly highlights, it seems plenty of managers hide behind these excuses when they've just been out thought or out fought.

At least Warnock just blames refs, something we can all get behind.
 
They changed nothing by going in a new direction or 'style'. We played Cardiff this season and I've never seen a more direct style. They just lumped it up to Moore and Glatzel (both 6ft 4) or tried to hit Morrison with long throws.

To be fair even Warnock said 8-9 of them were his signings so always going to be hard.

I think our gaffer is held in fine regard and enjoyed his spell at Cardiff. He worked wonders on a budget and getting them up from near the bottom in 18 months (sound familiar 😉). That said it sounded like fans turned on him so he walked. That's fair enough although he reads this site so we best be careful lol.

I've read Mick McCartney is coming in? Jesus christ😂
 
Good article.
Surprised things have gone so sour so quickly at Cardiff. When I've seen snatches of them on TV they could look a handful. Keiffer Moore looked to be a great buy for them - to be fair he has been out injured for 2 or 3 months.
Their 'up and at 'em' direct style looked a threat - especially back in their promotion year - with Morrison et al a real threat at set pieces.
But thinking back they did look a 'one trick pony' and perhaps the loss of Moore gave them nowhere to go.

Got me thinking how good Warnock is.
Against Birmingham we looked like we had been thought out. Lots of Bettinelli balls came straight back against us and as Brum pushed up on us we looked devoid of ideas and we looked desperate for someone 'big up top'.
Then against Forest we looked a different team. Hardly ever did the ball go back to Betinelli to hoof.
We are a hard team to suss out.

Still wouldn't mind someone like Moore for us mind :)
 
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