The Odd Couple-MOT

Warning: fireworks alert. Stand well back. The fuse has been lit on the Neil Warnock-Ken Bates axis and sparks could fly between the Old Irascibles.

Yet look beyond their public images of prickly martinets and a picture emerges of old-school footballing men with much in common, notably a hunger to prove a point.
It could just work. The chemistry may be right. Warnock and Bates, the Odd Couple of Elland Road, could be a marriage made in heaven for a while.

It may eventually end in divorce, the papers probably served via toxic programme notes, but it could prove a productive relationship for Leeds United until then.

Warnock and Bates are already being painted as Statler and Waldorf, the Muppets legends who spend their life heckling biliously from the balcony yet actually agreeing on many issues. Warnock and Bates care about the game and certainly care about their own place in the English footballing firmament.

Each wants to get back into the Premier League. Each wants to answer critics. They know what they are getting into. Bates considered making Warnock manager at Chelsea. They are street-fighters in suits, driven by what Warnock called yesterday “the big challenge" of revitalising the biggest club outside the Premier League in terms of support.

Like Bates, Warnock is a figure of sustained controversy, although there was sympathy for the manner in which he was dismissed by QPR.

Like Bates, Warnock is tough, obdurate and occasionally obnoxious. Yet these are precisely the gritty qualities Leeds require in the scrap to climb out of the Championship. It’s no catwalk; it’s a hard slog requiring resilience.

Leeds fans will surely put aside their reservations about chairman and manager if they combine to lead the team back into the promised land.
It is an oft-expressed adage in the game that Warnock is arguably better suited to the Championship, organising and motivating average players, getting them to “run through walls for me" to borrow one of his favourite expressions.

As a Crystal Palace fan reflected on Warnock’s strength yesterday, “He’s a one-trick pony but a good trick until you’re promoted."

The messages of goodwill from QPR fans towards Warnock were plenty yesterday, remembering how he had guided them up and also worked with strong personalities in the Loftus Road board room.

Even Warnock’s critics, and he has many within the game following falling-outs with officials and rival managers, would not be surprised if a re-galvanised Leeds went on a run, rising from mid-table into the play-off positions.

Warnock at Wembley on May 19? Don’t bet against it. The fireworks could be celebratory ones. It will certainly be worth watching.