Foxes Forum -Views on Nigel Pearson

[downendcity]

2 hours ago, Sheltons Army said:

He’s like that middle aged , weathered RAC guy who turns up to you as you are marooned on the side of the M5 with steam emerging from somewhere under the bonnet and a very poorly motor, you’re thinking catastrophic 

Stressed , because you absolutely have to get somewhere and babbling your stress in blind panic to him

He gives a slight grin as he opens the side door on his van reaching for some tools , turns to you , chuckles and says with a slight smile

‘Don’t worry mate ............I’ll have you off and running in 20 mins or so’

 

And you realise......he will

 

When he's fixed it, the RAC man points out that he's surprised, as the problem was almost certainly there when you bought the car and almost certainly should have been picked up since then.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the car salesman ( Swiss Tony) that sold you the vehicle, and the guy that did it's last few services are nowhere to be seen!

[Red Army 75]

Excellent read. Held in very high regard in Leicester.

Time to extend his contract 

[BCFCGav]

This might be less speculative soon! Leicester behind despite leading after 50 seconds. Not sure how secure Rodger’s job is!

[Rudolf Hucker]

59 minutes ago, GrahamC said:

of course he repeats phrases (we all do)

I don’t. I really don’t.  

[Mr Popodopolous]

Much as I think NP is great and a good number of Leicester fans do too, I don't see it beibg a major risk even if a vacancy does arise.

[maxjak]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

Living in Leicestershire means I'm meeting quite a few Foxes fans at the moment.

Generally I get told/asked something along the lines of "Pearson is doing well with you isn't he? Did you know he laid the groundwork for our PL win? You've got a good guy at the helm there. Nah wouldn't want him back though as those days are gone?"

Then I ask who they'd like and I'd say the majority say they want the bloke managing their adversary today: Potter.

Just my anecdotal evidence.

That to me makes perfect sense, Potter appears to be one of the most admired and desired manager's  in the Prem?  It is obvious to all what a fantastic job he is doing at Brighton.  But the little i know about NP, and his outlook, I  believe he would never make a backward step, and return to Leicester,as he seems genuinely committed to his long term project with us...... IMHO.

[BS15_RED]

A while back I read Peter Schmeichel‘s autobiography, in it he talks about Kasper’s career at Leicester and he speaks about Nige in glowing terms, going as far as saying that Leicester’s PL triumph was pretty much down to Nige and not Claudio Ranieri!

Edited September 4, 2022 by BS15_RED

[cidered abroad]

2 hours ago, Sheltons Army said:

Yes thanks @glynriley , I’ve listened to it , and then listened again !

I found it absolutely fascinating , listening to it now , and considering his words in various interviews since , and yesterday’s , and what has happened and what we’ve seen along a bumpy road

I found the interview good, interesting,  and quite reassuring at the time ,

but when you listen to it back , now , it was IMHO absolutely brilliant 

Hes a very level headed , intelligent , strong , wise , man , deep thinking and the absolute epitome (For me) of a true ‘leader’

It’s absolutely clear that he  made a brilliant and very astute professional assessment of the Club and its issues at that time and you could feel that he had a clear plan and idea of what he needed to do, and you can see , one by one , things he talked about in that interview being ticked off or significantly improved 

Besides the improvement on the pitch , it leaves me feeling very reassured about our trajectory and our current health

Its ironic , that the actual mess we were in , I actually believe in a twist of fate did us a favour

Nigel Pearson is himself , clearly stimulated , and I’d guess ‘at his best’ , by a ‘challenge’ and to a large degree we may have been the perfect fit for him (With the facilities etc we were at least a Club in decent shape) , a project , a challenge with the potential tools attainable or available , in time

I think we needed him , he’s possibly the most assured ‘leader’ I can recall in my years , and I think we , and the challenge have brought / are bringing out , the best of him 

I really like and admire the fact , that he was so realistic about the challenge , especially knowing the financial constraints moving forward, and actually openly relished it, and no changing goalposts since,  whining about lack of budget etc etc , just got on with it and attempted to deliver exactly what he said he would do , or try to.

I like that he absolutely gets supporters , and their desire to see commitment (He mentions it regularly) and to enjoy their football , and the responsibility of the players in respect of supporters

Is he taking us up at some point ?
Not a clue !    
 

But personally , I think we are very fortunate to have him , ( it’s a shame we couldn’t have had him a few years back ) and their are lots of things to take real pride in being a City fan at the moment and Pearson is one of them

 

I really like him, and more importantly I really rate him , totally trust him

 

I feel that we've only had three comparable managers to Nigel Pearson in my lifetime.

Fred Ford, Alan Dicks and Terry Cooper.

All of them took on a massive task to achieve what they did.

Joe Jordan 1st time and Cotterill were not here long enough to compare, IMO.

If, and it's a very big IF, NP manages to get us promoted from the state we were in when he arrived, it will be  above any of the three above without belittling their work at City.

[Sheltons Army]

10 minutes ago, cidered abroad said:

I feel that we've only had three comparable managers to Nigel Pearson in my lifetime.

Fred Ford, Alan Dicks and Terry Cooper.

All of them took on a massive task to achieve what they did.

Joe Jordan 1st time and Cotterill were not here long enough to compare, IMO.

If, and it's a very big IF, NP manages to get us promoted from the state we were in when he arrived, it will be  above any of the three above without belittling their work at City.

Interesting CA You go back further than me,  but I originally had in my post, 

‘Have we ever made a better appointment’

But then trying to compare with Dicks , and a different era and then the jobs JJ , GJ & SC did , I held off , and deleted it , but , whatever happens here on in and looking deep , I do wonder whether we have 

[Sheltons Army]

Not sure if it’s been posted before but below is an extract (About his Leicester times) from a piece with NP from The Coaches Voice 

An interesting short read , giving a good insight into him , and interesting in relation to his current work

———————————————————————————————————————————

 

While I was at Southampton, Leicester were relegated to the third tier for the first time in their history.

I became the sixth manager they’d had in 16 months, and I could sense it from the moment I went in, not just from the players but some of the staff, too. It was that feeling of: “I’ve heard it all before.”

If managers come and go so quickly, people go into survival mode. It becomes very difficult to ask them to pin their loyalty to your way of working. If you’re going to be gone in six months why should they side with you?

Everything is written in chalk. They’ll wipe it off when you’re gone.

“Sometimes you only change the culture by changing players”

It’s not straightforward to get people to change those attitudes. For that, you need a bit of patience.

Believing in what you do is one thing, but believing in what may be happening over a period of time is more difficult.

It’s not easy for people who are involved in it to get it, or believe it, or think that it’s the way forward, and you can’t force it. Change is inevitable, but there are subtleties involved in how you do it. Sometimes you need a strong hand, and sometimes it requires more of a subtle touch.

I was fortunate at Leicester, in that I inherited some outstanding staff at the club, as well as an open mentality. When you work at places where you don’t have that you realise it’s a huge gift.

The nucleus of senior players was good, and we brought in some young ones with the drive and desire to do well. It was a good blend – one that took us straight back up to the Championship.

That first year was probably the most enjoyable season I’ve had in football. Certainly as a manager.

For all of us it was a season in which we grew. That’s a bit of a poor word to use, but it’s probably the right one.

Our first season in the Championship ended with all the staff putting the season to bed with a couple of drinks in my father-in-law’s pub. We’d lost to Cardiff on penalties in the semi finals of the playoffs. Unfortunately that was my first stint at Leicester over.

“Some believe that batsmen have to play themselves back into form. There’s an element of that with footballers too”

On that occasion it was my decision. Things happened off the field that I wasn’t particularly happy with.

It was probably a bit of stubbornness from me, but there are moral dilemmas I won’t back down on. I decided it was time for a change.

When I went back almost 18 months later, I walked into a Leicester City that was under new ownership and with a playing squad that had changed hugely from when I left.

On paper all of us agreed – good side. But we quickly found out that the reason it was a good squad of players that weren’t getting results was because they were precisely that – a good squad on paper.

We recognised pretty quickly that we needed to change things, both in terms of the players and the culture. Sometimes you can only change the culture by changing the players.

It’s something that evolves over a period of time, which can be one of the difficult things as a manager. It’s not always just about the results – you can get quite low when you can’t see a shift in the mentality.

We got there in the end, but it took patience. A manager’s best work is often done when the results are bad. When everybody else is moaning – that’s when you’re probably doing your best work.

The summer after I went back to Leicester we signed Jamie Vardy. He was coming into the professional game late, from non-league. We’d spent a million quid on him, but my expectations of him being game-effective in the first year were relatively realistic.

 

“One of my strengths is actually to manage under pressure”

He has said himself that he struggled with self-doubt in that first season – we had to find a way of helping him through that. It’s difficult to get the balance right of knowing when to keep a player playing through a bad spell.

In cricket there’s a school of thought that batsmen have to play themselves back into form. There is an element of that with footballers, too. If a player has a bit of a difficult time and knows he’ll be taken out of the firing line every time then all you’ll ever have is a player who’s either in form, or one who’s in a total loss of form.

Strikers judge themselves by how many goals they score. You can say, “You’re doing exactly what we need when we don’t have the ball”, but it’s hard for them to believe.

It is a calculated risk sometimes when you say: “I’m going to keep playing you.” It could have backfired with Jamie, but we believed he could succeed.

That season we lost narrowly in the playoff semi finals again. My message to everyone – staff, and players – after that game was simple. Make sure that when you come back the disappointment is gone.

None of us – me included – could come back with anything other than a positive intent for the following season. If we returned with any lack of clarity as to what we needed we’d have had a nightmare.

From the first day back we talked about promotion. That’s what everybody expects you to get, so why be afraid of it?

We started that season well, but it was around Christmas that we really hit the run of form that got us promoted. Between mid-December and April we didn’t lose a single game.

 

“In football there are lots of different ways of finding success”

Gaining momentum is hard, but once you’ve got it it’s about not messing around with things too much. We used to work at what we did – we’d plan for what we’d do in games. But if I’m honest, one of the big things in that season was feeling that the players were confident.

We’re not talking about technical stuff here. We’re talking about managing the mood – allowing people to feel good, and to drive it themselves. 

What they need from the staff is structure, and the belief that what we are doing is alright.

I thought we’d do better the following season, in the Premier League, than we did. 

We’d constructed a team that we thought was good enough to get there – one we thought might be good enough once we were in it, too.

Some of the games we expected to do better in we drew. We were losing at home. At times it was a struggle to find a rhythm that allowed us to win games. In every league in the world, when you go from the second division to the top you get punished by players who have that extra bit of quality.

Even in tight games when we played pretty well we just couldn’t get over the line. All year we knew we were competitive, but we were losing by the odd goal and sitting bottom of the league.

My position came under intense scrutiny at times. I suppose you cope in different ways – publicly, I obviously didn’t manage it very well.

People might argue differently, but I will say that one of my strengths is to manage under pressure. 

Though everybody has a saturation point.

[Sleepy1968]

Leicester might need a new manager very soon, just lost 5-2 away at Brighton.

[eardun]

Yep that may have done for Rogers. 

[The Bard]

3 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

Living in Leicestershire means I'm meeting quite a few Foxes fans at the moment.

Generally I get told/asked something along the lines of "Pearson is doing well with you isn't he? Did you know he laid the groundwork for our PL win? You've got a good guy at the helm there. Nah wouldn't want him back though as those days are gone?"

Then I ask who they'd like and I'd say the majority say they want the bloke managing their adversary today: Potter.

Just my anecdotal evidence.

I'd be staggered if Potter left Brighton for Leicester.  

[ExiledAjax]

4 minutes ago, The Bard said:

I'd be staggered if Potter left Brighton for Leicester.  

Ha. Especially after this afternoon right!?

[Gert Mare]

3 hours ago, downendcity said:

When he's fixed it, the RAC man points out that he's surprised, as the problem was almost certainly there when you bought the car and almost certainly should have been picked up since then.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the car salesman ( Swiss Tony) that sold you the vehicle, and the guy that did it's last few services are nowhere to be seen!

Swiss Tony can now be found residing in Ipswich

[Robbored]

5 hours ago, Major Isewater said:

He is doing the same job here. Luckily SL is letting him get on with it. Bristol City Premier League Champions in two seasons. 

He is indeed and after 1.5 seasons he’s gradually turning us into a formidable outfit - just as he did at Leicester. I said when he signed the 3 year contract  that’s Nige is the first proper manager since Danny Wilson, both with promotion on their CV  

What doesn’t help tho is when Invisible Jon says he was disappointed with last season……….jeez……… 

That said maybe the invisible man hadn’t realised what an absolute shambles that Nige inherited and if that true then he was well and truly conned by smarmy Ashton.

[RedLionLad]

8 hours ago, Robbored said:

He is indeed and after 1.5 seasons he’s gradually turning us into a formidable outfit - just as he did at Leicester. I said when he signed the 3 year contract  that’s Nige is the first proper manager since Danny Wilson, both with promotion on their CV  

What doesn’t help tho is when Invisible Jon says he was disappointed with last season……….jeez……… 

That said maybe the invisible man hadn’t realised what an absolute shambles that Nige inherited and if that true then he was well and truly conned by smarmy Ashton.

Danny Wilson’s downfall…

[TV Tom]

2 hours ago, RedLionLad said:

Danny Wilson’s downfall…

Without doubt

[Robbored]

1 hour ago, harrys said:

Without doubt

Losing to a penalty in the pray off final probably did cost Wilson his job but his sacking came as a surprise to many including Wilson himself but City shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

I reckon it was Lee Miller missing a far post tap in cost City two points at the County Ground which had he scored would have meant automatic promotion but hey-ho it doesn’t matter now.

[Oh Louie louie]

Potter, will be the next england boss, i expect.

Fa man, if i ever saw one.

[swanker]

5 hours ago, RedLionLad said:

Danny Wilson’s downfall…

Not playing Leroy Lita!

[nebristolred]

Shades of Gary Johnson here as well to be fair. Pearson is lightyears ahead of GJ, but we shouldn't underestimate the culture change that GJ implemented, and one that we desperately needed. Filtering out the crap and replacing them with good eggs that put the club in a better position than before. Exactly the same as Nige is doing.

Wilson was a good bloke and a good manager, but ultimately what cost him is probably that particular skill which both GJ and NP exhibit.

[Oh Louie louie]

Didnt some fans suggest signing miller to sl?

Imagine how wilson felt about that.

 

 

[Monkeh]

I'd swap Pearson for Rogers, I think Rogers is a better manager,

That being said I don't want Pearson gone as I think he's fantastic and what the club needs

[Mr Popodopolous]

47 minutes ago, Oh Louie louie said:

miller

Ah Lee Miller. Him hitting the woodwork at Swindon late on in April 2004 arguably did for our promotion chances...ifs and buts, however we missed out by one point that season iirc finishing 3rd and that was the difference between a win and a draw. 2 pts.

Someone I was with at the game said it would cost us promotion..I scoffed at the time, good few weeks.left I said.

Edited September 5, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous

[Robbored]

2 hours ago, swanker said:

Not playing Leroy Lita!

In a podcast about a year ago DW said that he didn’t think that LL was fit enough to play………..

[luke_bristol]

You want him back? You can’t have him!

[Oh Louie louie]

Miller had no aggression in his game.

Peacock did, but when he ran his contract down, he wasnt giving 100 pc, in the run in.

[Robbored]

3 hours ago, Monkeh said:

I'd swap Pearson for Rogers, I think Rogers is a better manager,

That being said I don't want Pearson gone as I think he's fantastic and what the club needs

The Foxes fans what him gone. Several of them phoned in on Talk Sport earlier giving Rodgers a right slagging and the Souness was reckoned that BR looks after only himself and that’s why he thinks Rodgers wants out of Leicester but won’t resign but wants to be sacked thereby picking up a decent wedge.

They looked at how much Rodgers had spent at Leicester and reckoned his £9m in credit and him criticising the owners after the defeat to Brighton for not spending was a clear indication of him trying to get fired. Souness also reckoned that BR has a very decent squad but isn’t getting the best out of them………..Iirc Rodgers got the Liverpool job after Souness was sacked………….

 

[CodeRed]

30 minutes ago, Robbored said:

The Foxes fans what him gone. Several of them phoned in on Talk Sport earlier giving Rodgers a right slagging and the Souness was reckoned that BR looks after only himself and that’s why he thinks Rodgers wants out of Leicester but won’t resign but wants to be sacked thereby picking up a decent wedge.

They looked at how much Rodgers had spent at Leicester and reckoned his £9m in credit and him criticising the owners after the defeat to Brighton for not spending was a clear indication of him trying to get fired. Souness also reckoned that BR has a very decent squad but isn’t getting the best out of them………..Iirc Rodgers got the Liverpool job after Souness was sacked………….

 

Rodgers got the Liverpool job 18 years after Souness so he (Souness) can't still be bitter - can he?

I can't stand Rodgers, he came over as a right pratt in that TV behind the scenes Liverpool documentary - even worse than LJ for the David Brentspeak