Huddersfield Town manager Neil Warnock has admitted that turning down an offer to manage Sunderland is the biggest regret in his long career ahead of the two sides' clash tonight at the Stadium of Light.
The 74-year-old came out of retirement back in February in order to save the Terriers from relegation, returning to his former club 30 years after his first appointment there.
However, earlier this week, Warnock held up his hands and confirmed that rejecting the offer in the 1991/92 season from then-Sunderland chairman Bob Murray to manage the Black Cats still haunts him - far more so than saying no to Chelsea owner Ken Bates who had tried to pry him away from Notts County at the same time.
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"It’s my biggest regret in my whole career," Warnock said. "I turned Chelsea down but that wasn’t a regret – but Sunderland was a regret. But I didn’t want to do the dirty on a player I used to play with, Malcolm Crosby, who was caretaker manager.
"I said to the chairman there, Bob Murray it was: ‘Bob, I’ll come when they got knocked out the cup’. Then they got to the final, didn’t they! So it must have been fate."
While Malcolm Crosby's Sunderland was unable to pull off the miracle upset in the F.A Cup final against Liverpool, Huddersfield could find a miracle of their own in their appointment of Warnock.
The 74-year-old has dragged them from almost-certain relegation to 19th with just four matches left following a run of one loss in their last six matches - that being a 1-0 loss to Swansea over the weekend.
"It’s disappointing [for their run to come to an end]. I suppose everyone just looks at we were two minutes away from three points against Blackburn, then it’s a deflected goal [for Swansea] for another point, but hey, that’s life.
"I don’t think we’ve ever had anything easy. I’ve never had anything given to me, I’ve always had to work almost miracles to get where I’ve got, so it’s another challenge to try and get the points needed."
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