Greetings. Cherries fan in peace. Nigel Pearson is being mentioned as a candidate to take the Bournemouth job. I know Watford sacked him with 2 games left last season... but with the way you go through managers these days, it's hard to tell what happened... What went wrong? When he first arrived, you went on a decent run and I thought you were going to escape the drop comfortably. How did you all rate him?
Difficult to say really, he did very well at the start and actually managed to get us out of the bottom three, however things went on behind the scenes which ended up with him being dismissed with two games to go, however his contract only went for another two games anyway! Rumours are that he fell out with the owner and chief exec who like to micromanage everything and I think NP had had enough! He has always left his other jobs in strange circumstances, I think he will do very well for you initially but will leave when things start falling apart!
Hi there. His time at Watford isn't a good barometer of his credentials as imo I don't believe he had full control on the squad and a stop of momentum due to Covid didn't help us. Judging him on his other managerial achievements/behaviours and then deciding would be your best bet. Cheers.
He was ok. He definitely improved us when he came in but I don’t think it’s fair to dismiss his sacking as purely for off field problems. We were pretty dreadful post lockdown and by the time he was sacked we were all but down (given that our remaining fixtures were City (h) and Arsenal (a)). I think you could do worse, though.
Lockdown was difficult for everyone, especially at first, and Pearson had some personal family issues too which didn’t help. I wish we still had him now.
Thanks. Bears out my initial thoughts that he wouldn't be a bad choice out of what is available. Need someone with experience (please god not Pulis or Mark Hughes!) We have some excellent players, just not playing / gelling enough as a team.
Tactically...he didn't do anything special, it was more a case of actually getting Sarr and Deulofeu on the pitch together whenever possible, though just like all Watford managers in God knows how long, he was hamstrung by having to pick Deeney and having random members of the board interfere with him (and of course getting Covid). A bit of a 'pashun merchant', but I think you'd do well under him, seems like Tindall was just out of his depth. Automatics are probably out of reach for you, but as I'm sure you know by now, the teams from 3rd to 6th are much of a muchness...
He got the squad morale improved. Put an arm around the players shoulders. Then tried to knock sense into some and there was a fracas behind the scenes. Spoke his mind and was removed. But judging any managers tenure at Watford is fraught with danger because aside from some training exercises they have no control on anything else which is not how a manager needs to be treated. Also have to remember he will be without Shakespeare unless he decides to up sticks from Villa where he is doing an excellent job as he did with Leicester. Woodgate I presume would remain the number two and they know each other. He and Craig were rather inflexible late on sticking with Deeney up top instead of playing Welbeck and Pedro when the team was crying out for pace and players to run into the channels and he could not get a tune out of Pereyra who had downed tools the winker. Also lost his mother during the season which must have had an effect on him. Did not seem the same after the break for the initial lockdown.
I think getting COVID affected him and there was no leadership from elsewhere in the club. Players had a bit of a free for all to do what they like in the lock down. Shame as it started well getting the best out of many players.
Apparently something happened after the West Ham game that meant the relationship between himself and the owner was irreparably damaged, and he was promptly sacked. Don’t know the real story, but given what idiots our owners are, I'm probably more on his side now, to be honest. I really liked him, though I'm not convinced he would've kept us up, even if COVID hadn't happened. His playing Deeney up front on his own when Welbeck was available was odd, and as a team we were awful after lockdown. That said, I would definitely have him over the clown we have now.
He instilled a bit of work effort and passion, set us up OK to start the game but was poor at in-game management and tactical flexibility. He also suffered from a family bereavement in the January which co-incited with a drop off, not surprisingly. And when he lost the ‘up and at ‘em’ close contact with the players when restart came we were absolutely useless. But to get you at least into the playoffs he’ll do well.
He certainly got Sarr running with the ball, which is his great strength. As this season has gone on he has done it less and less and now he has stopped doing it at all.
I'd have him back in a heartbeat and I still maintain that we'd of survived had we kept him. Would be a great appointment for your lot. How's your season going? You seem to be having issues like us
My memory might be failing me but as far as recall the first thing NP did was to play Will Hughes as a centre mid . Everything else then fell into place. After we won away at Bournemouth which was a great day out we all thought that we had cracked it .
Pearson is a good disciplinarian and motivator. A proper manager, but he's not a tactical master. He needs his sidekick Shakespeare with him. Shakespeare now at Villa so he does need a very good number two or else I don't think he'll do too well.
Sorry this isnt right. Bouremouth fan popping in and he gets no abuse? State of things at WFC must be worse than I thought. Pearson is a straight talking decent old fashioned manager who will do well and not take idiots lightly. He wont accept diving and gamesmanship so totally wrong for Bournemouth IMO.
I can’t see that. The fatal blow was losing to West Ham, which was on his watch. If he’d stayed we would surely still have lost to Man City, so we would have had to beat Arsenal away, which seems highly unlikely. However, without the COVID interruption I do think he would have kept us up fairly comfortably.
It was Villa away and Everton at home that relegated us . Nothing anyone , not even Pep, can do about bog standard basic errors by highly paid footballers.
And subsequently would have been sacked as a ‘thank you’. Sounds ludicrous to the common football fan. But we all know that’s what we would have done.
Should be said that after going 3-0 down against Arsenal we played our best stuff in a long time, I know going 3-0 down is a big caveat, but that was a running problem we had with Pearson too
As others have said, great before lockdown, poor after. However, we are a right basket case of a club and senior management poke their noses into everyone's affairs. Plus, player power at WFC is rife. From what I understand, Pearson didn't like it (who would?), there was an altercation and he was sacked. Bizarre timing but hey that's WFC for you! Banter club. I think he'll do well for you.
Would just point out that before lockdown wasn't actually quite as rosy as the collective memory suggests - we had lost 4 of the last 6 games before lockdown, and the only win in the remaining two was the astonishing, but ludicrously improbable, 3-0 at Anfield. The entire platform for any potential great escape was essentially based on this short period over christmas: And, as plenty of others have said, we were absolutely rancid after lockdown - there wasn't a single game that we started on the front foot, or even looking like we were the team battling relegation, rather than sitting comfortably in midtable. For a manager who isn't a particular tactician, and relies primarily on pashun and motivation, that really wasn't an impressive look at all.
I would be more inclined to judge him on his pre-Covid performance rather than post. He himself got covid, there seemed to be a lack of direction from him and amongst the players during lockdown, then Deeney spearheaded the campaign to scrap the season to the point he was the last professional footballer back training. Basically our players dossed around for three months, never believed the season would restart and when it did their hearts weren’t in it. Then couple that with the fact there was clearly a falling out, most likely because he was undermined/and or one/some players took a dislike to him telling them to buck their ideas up. As has been said, he’s no master tactician but he basically looked at our team and made us play to our strengths, minus starting Deeney ahead of Welbeck, but in hindsight his hands were probably tied with that one. I’m sure he’d do well for you, but bear in mind despite us being an absolute basket case he does have form at pretty much every club for falling out with the hierarchy.
Didn't something happen with Masina at HT vs West Ham that kicked things off? Or was I reading too many rumours / complete crap at the time.
It was semi-reported at the time officially, but then strenuously denied since, and obviously there's no way to know/prove it one way or another as it stands.
It was unbelievably short sighted to sack him. I said long before relegation that if we went down then we have a great chance of going back up with NP at the helm because he knows the championship better than most.
Entirely true. But if hes fallen out with the board they had no choice. Even if the better choice would be sack themselves.
I can’t condone the timing, but he did not warrant retaining. I think the Liverpool result glossed over a record that was terrible in 2020. If we had survived he would have deserved his bonus in one envelope and his P45 in the other. The fact that Pearson was appointed at all was because he was virtually unemployable and cheap. I am probably in a minority of one, but just taking British managers- Mark Hughes or Chris Houghton would have kept us up if appointed instead of Pearson. if I was Bournemouth, and wanted a British manager. Instead of Pearson would go for Darren Moore.
He left Derby in 20th in 2016. Warnock knows the championship the best of the over 55 year old British managers. I think he might got more of a tune than Pearson out of our squad this season.
I didn't rate him very highly if I am completely honest with you, I think he come in and give the players a lift and we managed to get some momentum but once that bubble had burst and the honey moon period was over I found that he was tactically inept and unable to change things.