Nothing should surprise us in the world of football anymore, but the beauty of the most popular sport on the planet is that it keeps throwing us curveballs that we just don’t see coming. Smack. Here’s another one to hit us right between the eyes. An example of this being Leicester City today sacking controversial manager, Nigel Pearson.
Leicester City’s fairly recent history has been a maelstrom of brittle leadership and hard times for the long suffering fans. Yet in the 1960s, the Foxes employed just two managers, and a mere four sat in the hot seat in the 70s. It was the same number again in the 1980s before just a trio of men led the way in the final decade of the 20th Century – not least the Messianic, Martin O’Neill – who oversaw the golden era still talked about over pints and pizzas across the city, with misty-eyed nostalgia. Yet since the departure of the revered Northern Irishman, Leicester have hired and fired a dozen bosses, and now Pearson is the latest victim of a decision that – whichever way one looks at it – is crazier than a box of hopping frogs with a grudge against tadpole hunters.
Whilst the Blue Army are no different to a multitude of other clubs, in that they are run by ultra-successful (foreign) businessmen, these people probably know as much about football as I do aerospace engineering (that’s essentially rocket science to you and I). But, surely even the most isolated, out of touch, single-celled beings can see that Leicester have pretty much thrived since allowing Pearson the stability of a second spell in charge that saw him (crazily) become one of English football’s longest serving managers.
Now, Pearson is hardly a shrinking violet – at least to the outside world. He seemed to court controversy at what appeared almost weekly intervals last season – whether it was bizarrely comparing a journalist to a flightless bird from Africa or telling a Liverpool fan to go and meet his maker whilst making love to himself. This was hardly behaviour that would see him on a list of Garden Party attendees to meet Her Majesty. Yet I felt a long way out last season that Pearson’s eccentric ego trips had more than a touch of Sir Alex Ferguson about them. To even their own hardcore fans, Leicester were dead and buried – rooted to the foot of the Premiership table in February, and with a defence displaying more leaks than a student bedsit.
Yet Pearson cleverly kept the wolves at bay, his antics attracting all the media attention which kept his players beyond reproach. Aided by what was an undoubtedly a fixture run in that was the envy of the bottom half clubs, the emergence of Robert Huth in the January transfer window and the mercurial, evergreen talents of Esteban Cambiasso, Leicester started to make up ground, and their haul of seven wins from their last ten games was the form of Champions League, not Championship.
Pearson had to endure a phantom ‘sacking’ in February (a story which broke but was then retracted within hours); trying to dislodge an imaginary apple core that was seemingly stuck in the throat of James McCarthy (okay, he tried to throttle him) and latterly, the less than edifying story of his own son involved in a controversial sex-tape trip to Thailand which resulted in him and two other young players being thrown out of the club. But the bottom line is this: love him or loath him (and let’s not forget, there were countless Leicester fans calling for his head as their team slumped turning into the New Year) Pearson achieved the incredible – keeping his team in the Premiership against all the very, very long odds.
In a new era where the riches of television money now makes the English Premier League the envy of the modern sporting world, teams that stick around in the top flight will not only be living off the fat of the land, but create wealth and turnover beyond belief. To be fair, Leicester may have had a generous run in, but Pearson still achieved what the likes of Sean Dyche and Steve Bruce could not: he made sure his side beat those teams in front of them, therefore, guaranteeing survival.
Rumours will doubtless circulate in the coming days and weeks – already there is talk that the owners wanted some ‘big name’ signings who did not fit in with Pearson’s plans – but we will probably never know the exact truth. The owners have shot themselves in the feet and broken something that clearly never needed fixing. Perhaps unveiling favourite son, Steve Walsh, as the next boss might eventually make Pearson’s departure a dim and distant memory, but until then, the Leicester fans are rightly shaking their heads in disbelief. At least they still have them to shake – because the owners have clearly lost theirs.
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