Neil Warnock....character and controversy

Neil Warnock comes in as manager with one distinct brief: to keep the Millers in the Championship.

The 67-year-old, who has had more clubs than Danny Willett has in his garden shed — 14 at the last count — is at the New York until the end of the season.

With the club three points adrift of safety and with 16 games left, Warnock knows he has to squeeze out every available point — starting with tomorrow’s home game with Birmingham City.

Perhaps as he’s aged, the Sheffield-born former Millers’ winger has mellowed — but in the past he’s often engendered charisma and courted controversy.

Warnock is one of football’s characters. He’s no stranger to success, starting his managerial career in non-league in 1980 and taking Scarborough intom the Football League in 1987.

He then took Notts County from Division Three to the top flights in successive seasons, won promotion with Huddersfield and Plymouth before joining his boyhood club Sheffield United.

It was at Bramall Lane where Warnock shot to managerial prominence.

He led the Blades to the semi-finals of the League and FA Cups in 2003 and steered them to the Premier League in 2006 before being sacked when the club was subsequently relegated.

On the flip side, Warnock has often gone hand-in-glove with controversy.

When he was boss of struggling Bury he turned up for a press conference ahead of their game against the Blades wearing a Sheffield United tie — which didn’t go down well at Gigg Lane —  while he has fallen out with a catalogue of clubs, players, officials, managers...and actors. Sean Bean, according to Warnock’s autobiography, burst into his office blaming Warnock for the Blades’ relegation in a "foul-mouthed tirade" while manager’s wife and daughter were present.

Warnock clearly wears his heart on his sleeve and if Rotherham United can tap into that passion then they may just have found the man to keep them in this division.