NEIL’S FOUND IDEAL ROLE AT GULLS

TEMPTING as it is to see Neil Warnock as Torquay’s manager in waiting, Paul Wotton has no need to look over his shoulder.

Warnock was never interested in working as a sporting director – too corporate – but has long coveted the sort of mentoring role enjoyed by Lennie Lawrence at several EFL clubs.

Lawrence, 76, has been billed as a ‘management consultant’ a ‘managerial advisor’ and various other vague titles, but the essence of his job was always to act as a sounding board for a young manager.

“I’d love that, me,” Warnock, 75, once told me. “But I never get asked.”

EFL clubs presumably reasoned that any manager would view such a decorated doyen of the game as a threat, especially given his apparent inability to stay retired. Or they were just worried about his salary.

Whatever the case, Torquay and Wotton need have no concerns. Warnock’s role is unpaid, and having started the 2023-24 season managing in the Championship, he has neither the desire nor the knowledge to lead a team in National League South.

The job he has is the job he wants.

For Wotton, it is a golden opportunity to learn from arguably the finest man-manager in the business, a man whose innate grasp of human psychology has underpinned four decades of consistent success.

Tactics evolve. Players change. But Warnock has always understood that football is about people; pushing buttons, kicking backsides, pandering to prima donnas.

Life at Plainmoor is the sort of real world, lived experience that no coaching course can impart.

Wotton could not be in better hands.