Middlesbrough v Cardiff City – Neil Warnock reveals why he’s keen for Boro to nullify former transfer target Kieffer Moore

Leading the line for the Bluebirds is very likely to be former Barnsley and Rotherham United marksman Kieffer Moore and he was the ‘one that got away’ in terms of Warnock’s transfer targets last summer.

Moore has struck 16 times for Cardiff this term, including seven in eight games during the McCarthy era, and he is just the sort of forward presence that Boro have lacked this term.

Boro chief Warnock said: “With the Welsh connections, I knew he would always go there really.

“I think he used us to get a bit more money out of them. You cannot blame him for that!

“He is a handful and I wish we had got him. But it is one of those things and we have to try to keep him quiet.”

Warnock’s former club have certainly picked up under his fellow Yorkshireman McCarthy, who is doing his bit for ‘the senior brigade’ in Championship management alongside his old mate.

Not that Warnock will want to see further evidence of Cardiff’s stellar rise under McCarthy today, with the Welsh outfit having won their past six matches to surge into the play-off zone.

He added: “Mick was my apprentice when I played as a player at Barnsley and he cleaned my boots. Not very well, either!

“We have always stayed in touch and I have so much time for him.

“Their squad play to their strengths and that is what management is all about. Getting the best out of your players.

“I am really pleased for Mick. Especially with how he got – not stitched up – but how he left Ipswich.

“The grass is always greener at Ipswich and they have not pulled up any trees since he left and neither have the Republic of Ireland.

“For me, winning games of football and getting up the table like Mick has done is the right way to go about it.”

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