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2 hours ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Just to say, as further testament to Pearson, I know Ian Baker - the journalist that Nige called an ostrich - and he holds Nige in the highest possible regard. 

I contacted him when Pearson got the job here and he told me the players love him, and he actually rated him as one of the best English managers working in football. 

I couldn't agree more with that. Even though we're having an outrageous start to the season, Pearson's work here is so deeply ingrained, that still a decade later, Enzo Maresca is another manager who is benefitting from his work.

When we won the Premier League, there was oddly a bit of sadness amongst our fanbase. Now that might sound a bit stupid, and it might sound very condescending and ungrateful towards Ranieri, but there was a sense of disappointment that it wasn't Pearson who was at the helm. He was our Sir Alex Ferguson, our Arsene Wenger, the man we wanted to have at the Club forever. Still to this day, when we heard he was sacked, the first immediate thought for so much of our fanbase, would be to bring him back in a role between the manager and the ownership. So many forget about him winning League one and the Championship, and building the team which won the Premier League. 

The greatest thing I can say about Pearson, is that he's the reason our ownership were exceptional before Vichai's unfortunate death. When they arrived they wanted the typical 'big name' that foreign owners tend to do, and they brought in Sven. He wasted money on the likes of Matt Mills, Jermaine Beckford and the like. So whilst we did fail FFP in order to get promoted, Pearson was actually reducing our wage bill whilst getting us promoted. He taught the owners what running a football club meant and he really did give Vichai a lesson in how do get success in football. 

I think what I dislike the most about the way outsiders view him, is this myth about him not being a 'progressive' manager. He's often treated like he's the second coming of Tony Pulis. If that's the case, how on earth does he sign a player like Riyad Mahrez, who tracks back into his own half less than the linesman? Or sign a player like Kante, who's about 3 foot tall, to be his midfield enforcer? I don't know much about Alex Scott's progression with regards to Pearson's influence, but looking at the stats, he played him a hell of a lot for a manager who isn't 'progressive'. Then you've got Guardiola who plays 4 centre halves, and he's a modern footballing genius. It will always stick out to me something he said whilst managing us, about his time as a player at Middlesbrough when they were signing Juninho/Ravanelli etc. He said that they were never successful because there just wasn't enough balance, and that's something he always tried to do here. For every Riyad Mahrez, there was an Esteban Cambiasso, for every Jamie Vardy there was a Kevin Phillips. He just understood the game, and what it takes to progress, long term. He understood that you could actually finish lower in the league the following season, but actually progress, that's not something I believe owners understand. 

The last thing...I could go on about the bloke all day! The way he's seen as being 'egotistical', again, is just something that's completely false. He delegates, managers with a huge ego don't do that, when he was here he brought through the likes of Chris Powell and Kevin Phillips from their last games as players and was their first step on the ladder as coaches. Even when Chris Powell left to take his first job, Pearson took him to Derby. He always looked to sign leaders and big personalities, he wanted players who would challenge him, the same with coaches, he wanted young coaches who would bring new ideas. He always seems to know his weaknesses, and employ people with those strengths and he always seems to learn from his mistakes. 

Let me start of by saying that I haven't been following Bristol City very closely, so I can't comment too much on the job NP did whilst at your place. I did watch your game against Ipswich though, and was staggered that he has somehow got Andy King (A bit of a Leicester legend really) to be competitive at centre half, when we nicknamed him the 'Invisible man' here, as he'd not really do much all game but then pop up with a goal.

The reason I wanted to post was because I saw a couple of posts on Social Media about how this was 'Inevitable' because NP falls out with everyone, but from my experience, that's really not the case. He calls a spade a spade, no doubt, and that gets confused in the modern world as somehow being a negative. He never once fell out with our current ownership, and it's important to address the reason for his departure from our Club, he simply chose to back his Son and walk away from millions of pounds from his contract. There's no doubt his son was in the wrong, he along with a few other youth players were caught on camera, making derogatory remarks to a couple of Thai women that they were having sex with at the time. But he never 'fell out' with our ownership because of that, there was never a reaction from Pearson or our ownership that the outcome was indeed wrong. In fact, I think it was quite the opposite, Pearson respected that the owners had to do what they did (Demand the youth players including his son to be sacked), whilst our owners also respected that as a father, NP wanted to back and protect his son. During his time here, he had nothing but praise for our owners, and that has never changed even after he was sacked, for non footballing reasons.

He did fall out with previous owner, Milan Mandaric. But how is a manager supposed to react, when you've just won League 1 with a side, got them into the play offs during that first season back in the Championship, and whilst those play off games are going on, your owner is trying to convince Paulo Sousa to take his job for the following season? I think that's a perfectly valid reason to fall out with your owners. He also had incidents with certain players, he fell out with Matt Mills, because he believed he was a disgrace of a captain, and the fans shared the same view. But i've never heard a single player, come out with a legitimate reason as to why they disliked him, I've heard nothing but endless praise from every player or member of staff who have worked under him. What he did at our Club, is nothing short of miraculous. He was the man who signed Vardy, Mahrez and Kante, along with every other player who won the Premier League, with the exception of at most 1 or 2. He is responsible for building a side which won League 1, the Championship and the Premier League. I'm glad that the majority of your fanbase hold him in high regard, and could see that he was progressing the Club. Because that's ultimately what he does, if you let him. He will never get the credit he deserves from the job he did with us, because he's not someone who is willing to lie for personal gain. He values loyalty, and quite rightly, will not be told by non-footballing people, how to make footballing decisions.

I watched his interview, where it was obvious that someone above him had tried to influence his team selection, regarding the selection of Andy King. I'm sure you've seen it too, but I'd recommend watching the interview where Pearson gets confrontational with a Journalist and calls him an "Ostrich", as it goes to show why you need to leave Footballing decisions to footballing people. Ironically, it was Pearson who was and has been since, 'Ostracized' because of his comments in that interview. But it's important to understand the facts, that team Pearson had built, that the Journalist was questioning, went and won the Premier League the following season. The journalist, a non-footballing person, was made to look clueless, but unsurprisingly that was never addressed, and Pearson is still viewed as this man who just falls out with everyone for no reason.

All the best for the season, I just wanted to share a bit about a man who is responsible for one of the greatest stories in the history of our sport. How many managers have built sides to win three different domestic leagues at a single club? There will be some pro Pearson chants from the away end when we play later in the season as there were in the home game, the bloke is a god amongst most of our fanbase.