Neil Warnock believes Tiger Woods’ weekend win at the Masters shows his Cardiff team should never give up the fight against the drop.
Golf legend Woods overcame years of injury trouble and personal problems to win his first Major for almost 11 years at Augusta — offering hope to a Bluebirds side who go into Tuesday's six-pointer away to 17th placed Brighton in the final relegation place with only five games left.
“You’ve just got to look at the golf and see what an amazing job Tiger has done. Nobody gave him a chance either and the Brighton game is our chance to give us an opportunity to keep going to the end of the season,” said Warnock.
“We’ve got to grasp it and we’ve got to keep trying to be as positive as we can. I found what Tiger did to be really inspiring and it is just an amazing story. He has been written off that many times, but that determination he shows is incredible, although I don’t think even Tiger was as long a shot as 20-1.
“We’ve felt sorry for ourselves at times in recent weeks, but we haven’t got time for that any more. We’ve got to give it our best shot and if it isn’t good enough we will just have to accept it.”
Saturday’s 2-1 defeat away to fellow relegation candidates Burnley put a huge dent in Cardiff’s survival hopes and virtually guaranteed the Clarets’ safety.
Five points adrift of Brighton having played a game more, only a win looks like being good enough to keep Cardiff’s faint hopes alive.
“You could say we are at the point of no return. I thought we had to beat Burnley and Brighton to be honest, so we are already one down,” added Warnock, trying to keep the Welsh club up in the wake of record-signing Emiliano Sala's January death before ever playing for them and last month's loss of talismanic defender Sol Bamba to a season-ending knee injury.
“It just means Tuesday night becomes even more important, and I’m sure they feel the same. If anything, their result against Bournemouth (a 5-0 defeat) has made it even harder for us."
