Neil Warnock aims parting shot at Crystal Palace's administrator

Neil Warnock has aimed a withering parting shot at Crystal Palace's administrator who, he suggested, gave him little option but to quit the club. The manager has moved across London to Queen's Park Rangers, swapping one Championship relegation struggle for another, although he hopes to challenge in due course for promotion to the Premier League in order to fulfil an ambition to work in the top division once more. His enthusiasm at the new challenge, though, was tempered slightly by regret at how his tenure at Selhurst Park ended. Warnock maintains Palace ought never to have been pushed into the hands of the administrator, Brendan Guilfoyle of P&A Partnership, arguing that "the people who put the club there aren't going to get their money any earlier". Palace, docked 10 points by the Football League, have appointed Paul Hart as Warnock's managerial successor while Guilfoyle has overseen the difficult yet necessary steps to cut costs. Guilfoyle said that Warnock had told him that he no longer had the "stomach for the fight" at Palace, a revelation that particularly incensed the manager, but Warnock's grievances run deeper. With a three-and-a-half year contract on offer at QPR, he was frustrated at how Guilfoyle could give him no assurances about his future at Palace while he also accused the administrator of breaking promises to him over player recruitment and when the club would be sold. "I think when he [Guilfoyle] interviewed Paul Hart and people asked him 'Why Paul Hart?', he said 'Well, I'm an accountant', and I think that sums it up, really," Warnock said. "He made it clear that new owners could come in at any time and that they might want their own manager. It was very difficult working with him. He has a high opinion of himself. I came down to the club for Simon Jordan and he has left so I lost the day-to-day involvement of the chairman and it is difficult talking to an administrator, especially when you don't think that he should be in anyhow. There were problems, especially on transfer deadline day. Another blow was when I was told by the administrator's agent that I could bring players in if I got the squad down to 19. I did and then we couldn't. You are always treading sand." Palace will receive a compensation payment from QPR for Warnock of up to £600,000, which will go towards their bid to re-balance the books. "They got a very good fee for me," Warnock continued, "and I don't think he [Guilfoyle] turned his nose up at that. The biggest thing for me of late was when I found out that the agent who the administrator brought in received £100,000 within seven days for selling Victor Moses [to Wigan Athletic] for £2m. I could have sold Moses in my sleep. That really was the bugbear for me. "You will always feel that you have let the fans down but they have to ask themselves what they would have done in my position, with a three-and-a-half year contract for their family or a chance of being out of a job in a fortnight; 99.9% would take the three-and-a-half years." On the face of it, Warnock accepts, it would appear that he has jumped from the "frying pan into the fire". He becomes QPR's fifth manager of the season and their 12th in four years. Yet Ishan Saksena, who has replaced Flavio Briatore as the chairman of QPR Holdings Ltd, insisted that the club had learnt from their mistakes and that "stability" was now the order of the day. He pledged his "100% trust and faith" to Warnock who, he said, would be in charge of all playing matters, together with the football club chairman, Gianni Paladini. Briatore remains in the background as a stakeholder. Warnock, who made the point that he would not have moved to Loftus Road if he had not been assured that he would have the final say on selection matters, noted that the squad needed "additions in certain areas". He would not, though, be raiding Palace for such players before the end of the season. "No, not now," he said. "I would not want to say 'No' for the future."