NEIL WARNOCK once decided to play a right-back as a striker after his wife had a dream.
During his time as manager of Crystal Palace, Warnock was told by his wife that if he played Danny Butterfield as a striker then he would net the winning goal in an FA Cup fourth-round tie against Wolves.
Danny Butterfield scored a hat-trick for Crystal Palace against WolvesNews Group Newspapers Ltd
PANeil Warnock played Butterfield up front after a dream from his wife Sharon[/caption]
Wife Sharon had a vivid dream that the defender would settle the tie against the West Midlands outfit.
Warnock as the trusting husband listened to his wife and opted to use the second choice right back up front.
The experiment was a great success as Butterfield went on to score a perfect hat-trick for the Eagles.
He said: “We were selling Victor [Moses] so there was a space free up top, which I was never going to fill.
“But in a training session with Neil Warnock I played up top and Neil being Neil went ‘we will go with that tomorrow’.
“There were rumours that I would be up top in the dressing room and then we turn up to the game and he has written it up on the wall.”
“It was a free hit for me to do something when no one expected it, it was a funny one and I should have had a fourth.”
The hat-trick is the current record for the fastest scored by a Crystal Palace player.
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Butterfield added: “To be a part of the history of Palace with the hat-trick is a real bonus.
“I am sure it will be beaten one day.”
Team-mate Darren Ambrose has also revealed that the decision to play Butterfield up top was not solely down to his performances in training.
During an appearance on talkSPORT, he admitted that Warnock was influenced as his wife Sharon dreamt that Butterfield would send Palace into the next round.
He said: “We got a draw away and we’re playing them at home.
“So we’ve come in and we’ve all sat down and he said, ‘Right, my wife Sharon, she had a dream last night’.
“And no one really laughed because that was what he was like. And he said, ‘She dreamt that my right-back scores the winning goal today’.
“And we were like, ‘Okay.’ ‘So Danny Butterfield, you’re playing up front.’
“And he wasn’t even the [first-choice] right-back at the time, he was a fringe player because Clyney was playing right back at the time – Nathaniel Clyne.
“We all just started laughing then and he was like, ‘No, I’m being serious.’
“And I was taking centre with him, and even then I was looking over to the bench like going, ‘Gaffa, is this a joke? Put him back to right-back’.
“And I think about 12 minutes later, he had a perfect hat-trick – Danny Butterfield. And we won the game 3-1.”
It is not the only time Warnock trusted his wife’s premonitions as he once dropped Paul Ifill for Sheffield United as a result of them.