Ronnie Jepson on why Huddersfield Town's Neil Warnock cannot take it easy even at 74: "He just doesn't stop. He loves it"

You can never take too much he says at face value, but on this there seemed to be a serious underlying point.

Warnock is 74 years-old and from the moment he came out of his latest retirement from football management he was adamant that nowadays he just managed from February to May, with the rest of the year reserved for stage shows, media work and time with the family in Cornwall.

It made sense.

A far more combustible character on the touchline than Crystal Palace's more languid manager Roy Hodgson – two years his senior – Warnock often looked drained in post-match press conferences, the twinkle still in the eye and the snappy one-liners still on his lips but the batteries low.

So when chairman Kevin Nagle persuaded the Sheffielder to bow to those terraces requests and give him another season, you might have thought it would put more emphasis on the rest of the coaching staff to take some of the weight off their boss.

It seemed a wise move to add Carl Serrant to the slimline coaching staff that saw out 2022-23, and like almost all modern professional managers, Warnock has staff around him to make his job manageable.

Mark Cartwright replaced Warnock's former player Leigh Bromby as sporting director in the summer, tasked with some of the legwork involved in making transfers, as well as a myriad of other unseen tasks.

But ask Warnock's long-time assistant Ronnie Jepson if he is doing his bit to ease the burden on him, and you get a laugh back.

Even at this stage of his career, the former manager of Scarborough, Sheffield United, Leeds United, Rotherham United, Middlesbrough and many others only has one gear.

Winger Sorba Thomas might have this week described Warnock as "the calm one" for the way he manages the Wales international, but it is not the first description which springs to Jepson's mind.

His boss will simply not be helped.

"He's got an unbelievable work ethic, a desire like you wouldn't believe," says Jespon, a striker under Warnock at Huddersfield and Oldham Athletic in the 1990s. "He's just non-stop."

He cites the opening weekend of the season as an example. The Terriers lost 3-1 at Plymouth Argyle, then had a bus trip home of more than 300 miles.

"On Sunday you thought you could have a rest, a relaxing day at home but he's never off the phone," says Jepson, half-complaining, fully admiring. "He was picking the team for Tuesday, the next Saturday, he's onto the physio, he just doesn't stop. He loves it.

"Long may that continue."

Jespon, given a guard of honour with Warnock after they masterminded the victory over Sheffield United which secured the club's second-tier status for another season, admitted he did not imagine coming back for a third spell that night.

But when the call came, "I just cancelled my holiday!”

For both men, the emotional pull of the West Yorkshire club has been too great to resist.

"The fans are great, it's a good football club,” says Jepson, scorer of 36 goals in 107 Town appearances. “We just want to give our best for the club."

It has been a tough start to the new season. Being knocked out of the League Cup so early is not something Warnock is likely to lose sleep over – before the first-round tie against Middlesbrough he made it plain he did not think he had the depth of squad to give the competition a good crack – but Saturday's draw against the Teessiders brought a first point after costly errors against Plymouth and Leicester City.

Town are still active in the market ahead of the 11pm deadline a week on Friday, but some supporters are getting more than a little twitchy about the lack of reinforcements to a squad which sailed close to the relegation wind last season.

As far as Jepson and many other observers are concerned, there could be no better man to play the cards the Terriers have been dealt.

"The gaffer's the best man for the job by a mile," he insists, "and hopefully we don't wait until the end of the season (to secure Championship safety this time).

"He's seen it all performance-wise, squad-wise, he knows where it's at. He doesn't always show his hand because he doesn't want to give too much away to the opposition but he knows exactly where the squad is and where this football club is at this moment in time.

"He's trying his utmost to improve that.

"It's not going to be easy but it won't be for a lack of trying."

You can bank on that.