Nigel Pearson - Sacked

Yes, on the face of things it’s seems terrible, being locked out of the training ground especially. I guess though it depends if something did happen to warrant it and what it was, which we’ll probably never know.

Interesting that he was potentially in poor health while managing us, could be a link there, maybe Gino found out and thought it had affected decision making?

 

Also did I miss it but he talks about everyone at Watford getting Covid? Is that when Mapps got it?

 

Given what most of us have heard it's hardly a surprise he was sacked.
Very poor of the club to do it by a telephone call if that is true.

 

It's a shame we'll probably never know the full story. To me, to refuse him entry to the training ground suggests a serious incident took place, or Gino is being petty.

Given Nigel's history of being outspoken and at times aggressive, and Gino's history of being borderline vindictive to those who have crossed him, I'd say both are possible.

 

Do they ever?

 

I imagine there was some ‘disagreement’ that went too far between manager and owner and perhaps the owner/club feared a follow up incident, hence locking him out and Gino not dealing with the sacking himself? Would also somewhat explain the terse nature of the announcement.

Not that I would agree with doing things that way.

 

Keep that kind of talk to the Shoutbox please in future.

 

The most likely scenario is that Pozzo once again made a reckless, kneejerk decision with no real long term plan or objective behind it in place. It's actually quite sweet how everyone is assuming some almighty row must have taken place despite all parties stating that it didn't and all of the examples of Pozzo's classless and disrespectful conduct in the past.

 

No precedent with any other sacking though, they sack managers left right and centre but always say nice things about them afterwards and thank them. If it was purely for footballing reasons why the statement afterwards? It makes zero sense.

 

Probably for the same reason they put out a similar statement about Welbeck despite his departure apparently being fairly amicable or why they still haven't officially announced Mariappa leaving. Could be poor communication, some perceived slight or because they know people will assume something dodgy went on if they put out a short, sh*tty statement, which would go some way to letting them off the hook for yet another ludicrous decision.

 

"We wish Danny every success for the future"

Did you expect a 30 minute tribute video for a sicknote that refused to play in the Championship?

https://www.watfordfc.com/news/official-welbeck-departs

 

Stop being a loud minority on a audio free football website. I'm having to wear earplugs during games because of the likes of you.

 

Have they?

 

Playing devils advocate - could it be that Pearson contracted Covid whilst manager and was perhaps a little reckless in not informing his employers? Could explain the anger shown and the fact he was locked out of the training ground?

Unlikely I know - but seeing as he admits he's currently coming out of what seems to be a prolonged bout of Covid, the timeframe might fit such a scenario.

 

As far as I’m aware they have unless you have any reports I haven’t seen to share?

 

If by 'assumed' and 'all parties stating that it didn't happen' you mean taken directly from reporting by our tier-1 journalist as well as the Telegraph's Mike Mcgrath, Jason Burt and John Percy, amongst others, then yes, very 'sweet' indeed.

 

Why shocking? Pearson reported to Giraldi in the club's heirachy.

I've never worked anywhere that didn't have the immediate manager of the person deal with sackings, much less have the owner of the company or CEO handle it. If I get sacked from my job, my boss will do it, not the owners. Not sure why football clubs should be any different.

 

Who cares? His record was largely terrible. **** him.

 

Has Pearson denied an altercation took place? Have the club denied that? The only person who said anything as far as I know is Deeney. And he was hardly convincing.

 

Pearson completely denied that anything of that nature went on in the talkSPORT clip that was linked on the last page.

 

I make it 3 months and 18 days since he was sacked.

All of a sudden he’s in the Guardian, the Times, the Athletic and on Talk Sport all on the same day.

I know he’s had health issues, but it seems like it’s highly possible he couldn’t talk to the press as part of his severance for 3 months, then of course when he did he couldn’t actually say what happened.

It could’ve been something as simple as a cross words between him and Gino which Gino took offence to and decided to sack him in the way he did.

Either way, he didn’t get sacked and locked out of the training ground for purely footballing matters. I know our owners aren’t perfect and have made some questionable decisions, but I don’t think they ever go so completely out of their way to do so.

 

In 99.9% of situations managers are sacked because of poor performance.

Owners don’t actually want to sack them, they don’t want to have to pay them off if they can avoid it, obviously Watford go through their fair share of managers, but they would still rather not have to sack them.

But what about the 0.1% of managers that aren’t sacked for performance reasons?

Rather interestingly, Nigel Pearson was sacked from two of his previous three clubs for non performance related reasons.

Then and lo and behold, Watford sack him rather inexplicably with two games to go, releasing a terse, functional statement, with us later learning he was also locked out of the training ground.

But yeah, it was just a random mindless decision on behalf of the owners.

If it walks like a duck, etc.

 

There’s no way any club, even Watford, would sack their manager for sporting reasons (i.e. to avoid relegation) in those circumstances. There has to have been a falling out at the very least.

 

Spot on.

Pearson's history is enough reason by itself to be sceptical about the public version of events. The facts as reported just don't add up.

 

Then you have only worked in larger organisations or poorly run ones. I’ve worked in large corporates where the immediate boss does the releasing with HR present but in smaller staffed companies the boss always takes care of the redundancies. In the football world the manager is nearly always fired by the chairman. To pretend it is normal for Giraldi to do it is plain odd.

 

Pearson conduct. Owners behaving idiotically. Unfortunately we have 2 things walking like ducks here so it doesn’t help us.

 

Yep. Reckon the owners acted in a very disrespectful way.

 

My advice, kill one off and it'll be clear it was the other.

As per my usual consultancy I'll send you the bill later..

 

What have we all heard? I thought that was largely debunked?

 

100%.