'Addicted' Huddersfield Town manager Neil Warnock lays out his demands to his new squad

On Thursday morning he landed at Heathrow after three hours' sleep and was driven to West Yorkshire for a first meeting with his Huddersfield Town players.

On Friday he will take training and on Saturday the 74-year-old plunges into another relegation battle, at home to Birmingham City.

No wonder he says he is addicted to management.

Warnock’s affection for the club was a big draw and he is determined to put smiles back on the faces of Terriers fans and players alike.

"I think so," he says when asked if he is addicted to management, a job he has been doing for 15 different clubs since the early 1980s. "I just love creating atmosphere in the dressing rooms.

"I've got goosepimples talking to you now.

"Whether we can survive, I don't know, but I want to leave them in a better place and in the meantime I want to enjoy myself."

Warnock met his players on Thursday.

"I said I was sorry I couldn't be there the other night at Stoke but I was in a jazz club in New York and it was a better evening," he quipped.

"I landed at Heathrow at 11 and it was important we got a meeting with the players at 4.15, you lot (media) at five o'clock. I don't really want to get distracted on Friday because I've only got one (training) session.

"I had a half-an-hour speech to the players about what I was expecting. I asked Hoggy (captain Jonathan Hogg) if it was all right and he said the lads went home excited."

Even so, he was quick to downplay expectations.

"We're struggling injury-wise at the back," he cautioned. "Some of the goals I've seen are preventable but we are a bit short.

"We've just to got to come up on certain parts of our game I demand. It's no good doing certain bits and then letting themselves down.

"Every day in training and in a match I want them to give their best. If they don't, they won't be playing."

This is Warnock's second spell at Town, who he took to Wembley twice in the mid-1990s – an Autoglass Trophy final and a play-off final win – before leaving after falling out with the then-chairman.

"It'll be emotional, it was when I came up," he said. "The fans want me to do well because they don't like seeing the team like it is, performances have not been good enough.

"I always thought if I was going to come back in it would be the end of Feb. I only want to work 10 weeks a year. And it was always going to be a club I Ioved. Sharon (his wife) has always loved Huddersfield. She said to me, 'Why don't you do that?'

"We've got the top three teams to play – Burnley, Middlesbrough and Sheff United – they're great games. It'll be nice to get the crowd buzzing – it might only be for half an hour!

"I honestly don't think they could have gone anywhere else, I think it just needed calming down.

"I know people who are 50 you'd think they were 90. I just felt I could help (chairman) Dean Hoyle. I should have come with Dean when I went to flamin' Leeds but I thought I could conquer Ken Bates.

"I'll be taking my blood pressure pills. I had a couple of blood clots at Middlesbrough. My objective is losing five or six pounds here.”