{"id":596013,"date":"2026-05-21T10:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/596013\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T10:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:43:11","slug":"neil-warnock-on-how-to-win-the-efl-play-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/596013\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Warnock on how to win the EFL play-offs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Warnock says one of his most memorable play-off triumphs came with Plymouth Argyle in 1996 as they won promotion from what is now League Two.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I enjoyed Plymouth because it was the first time the Green Army had been to Wembley and they were always really supportive &#8211; I remember people queuing for tickets and the talk around the town,&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But that victory was far from simple for the Pilgrims, who ended the season one point and one place off automatic promotion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They lost the first leg of the semi-final 1-0 at Colchester United, before winning 3-1 at Home Park in a memorable return game that also saw him sent from the dugout &#8211; and into the stands with the Argyle fans &#8211; after a chat with the referee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I remember Adrian Littlejohn was going through on goal and they pulled him down, and the lad (Mark Kinsella) should have got sent off. He didn&#8217;t, and then the same lad went and scored another goal and you feel hard done to,&#8221; Warnock says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The referee came and sent me off and then apologised at the end of the game because he got it wrong &#8211; all those little things you remember.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There&#8217;s so many emotions. At Plymouth in the second leg Paul Williams scored late on &#8211; I&#8217;d never even seen him in the opponents&#8217; box until then.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Argyle went on to beat Darlington 1-0 in the final thanks to a second-half Ronnie Mauge goal &#8211; one that Warnock is still proud of to this day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The pleasing thing about Plymouth was that it was a set-piece that we worked on in training,&#8221; he recalls.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Mark Patterson and somebody else made a late run in the box to allow Ronnie Mauge to be free and score a great header.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When you do score with a set-piece, from a manager&#8217;s point of view, it&#8217;s really pleasing.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warnock says one of his most memorable play-off triumphs came with Plymouth Argyle in 1996 as they won&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-596013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}