The 20th century could be characterized by many social trends. Two of those, as considered by many people to be the most influential is the rise of capitalism and the individual status. Like everything, the changes brought preferences and disadvantages. The rise of the personal relations was a positive thing but also brought responsibility taking to a high new level when it comes to the individual – One day you're on the top of the world, the other you might find yourself locked in a ward. It's especially true in business and even more in Show-Business.
It's even more crucial when you talk about football, football manager. In a study that was published on Voucherbox.co.uk in fall 2016 and examined the meantime ("lifespan") of a manager in the Premier League since it's establishment. The average manager has a job for 1165 days and holds a record of 30% win rate in two different teams, it's hard to be surprised to see managers becoming.
bald or getting white hair in a relatively young age. Data and logic shows that most of the sacks in modern football are result of professional ability, when a manager gets the sack, not for a professional reason or the fans as well as the press don't "accept" the reason to professional, normally such occurrences make a lot of noise, much more than a traditional sack. Amongst better-known stories (but it's also arguably) you can think about Carlo Ancelotti's sackings from Chelsea and Real Madrid, Jupp Heynckes's sacking from Bayern, George Graham from Arsenal, Sam Allardyce from Blackburn and even Sir Alex Ferguson got axed from St Mirren after he was accused of violation of his contract because he had talks with Aberdeen.
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| Although the shock on Henry's face, sacking managers isn't a rare thing today |
The joint thing about the examples above is that the managers that were mentioned continued to have amazing careers (more or less) but didn't get off of the radar. It's logical to think that if the average person should say the first association he has with one of the names above he wouldn't say something about those particular sacks of those bosses but probably their successes. Everything written in this column till now doesn't recommence by much or gives a fresh point of view to a topic which isn't part of the mainstream discussion but there are articles, studies and discussions about it even if the topic is somewhat insignificant. That's why I've decided to write this first article in an upcoming series about the occasions that got very little to none attention, not in the mainstream or even the niche discussions. I want to tell you about those cases where managers that their sacking was somewhat surprising and even irksome and no one heard about them afterwards. I want to tell you about those stories from beginning to the end inside and outside the pitch. The first article in a series about managers that got sacked for a very questionable reason and today – Nigel Pearson.
Nigel Pearson – Leicester
The first association that comes to one's mind when you say "Leicester" would be something like: "Cinderella Story", the beauty of sports, the winning of the underdog etc. But before Claudio Ranieri's arrival to Leicester in a somewhat surprising matter and even the historical silverware that he led the foxes to, they had the stubborn English manager Nigel Pearson. Pearson managed Leicester on two terms when in the second term he and the team recovered from knock out in the playoffs of the 12-13 season and led the team in the next season to the top of the Championship table and advancement to the Premier League with a declaration of intent. Nine wins in a row through that season were a record set by the club and brought Pearson to be Manager of The Month on January 2014 as well as on March when the team completed a run of 20 games unbeaten.
In the Premier League the things didn't go as easy, although the decent kickoff that included draws against Arsenal at home and Stoke away, lose to Chelsea and impressive win 5-3 against Manchester United, the team set for four and a half months in the bottom of the league. In a game against Crystal Palace on February, Nigel Pearson chocked James McArthur of the latest and the Guardian posted that the hot-headed manager got sacked and that such message was brought to him by the club. On the same evening, Leicester denied the news and it seems like the situation made something "click" in Pearson's head. The manager led the team to amazing comeback run with seven wins in the last nine games finishing 14th on the table, far from where Leicester been for most of the season. To understand how great of an achievement it is, this is only the third time in the Premier League history that a team that was bottom of the league on Christmas Eve didn’t relegate.
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| Dilly-Ding Dilly-Dong, Claudio Ranieri |
Unsuspectedly, after the major chord the fall kicked in – on 30th of June 2015, Leicester announced that they're parting ways with the manager who on April called a journalist "An Ostrich", "Silly" and "Stupid" after the team lost 3-1 to Chelsea. Club's official statement was that "differences in perspective" led to the bold move. Later, it's been revealed that the actual reason was a scandal that involved Pearson's son – James, who played for Foxes Reserves and got filmed by three teammates taking part in a racist sex-tape. Two weeks after Pearson left the post-Leicester announced the signing of Claudio Ranieri and the rest is history. But what happened to Pearson? After almost a year away from the pitch Pearson got a job at Derby County. The team that through ought few seasons put their goal to advance to the Premier League failed in that matter time after time. In the three seasons before Pearson came in the club got knocked off of the playoffs twice and had a bad run in the end of the season once which led them out of the top six and the playoffs. By this time Derby had in charge names such as Nigel Clough, Steve Mclaren, Paul Clement and Darius Vassel.
It seemed that Pearson is the right man to lead The Rams upwards. In the summer he brought Matej Vydra (8 Mil) from Watford as well as the wing back/winger Akachi Anya. It seemed like he had a good team to run at the top of the table even though they lost their star Jeff Hendrick who left for Burnley on the deadline day for 10.5 mil. But things didn't go very well. One win out of nine first games was the secondary reason for what happened later. The main reason was criticism that Pearson had in public against the owner who didn't allow him to use drones in the training sessions. This act led Pearson to be suspended and miss his team's second win of the season on 27th of September 2-0 against Cardiff, later that day Pearson got the sack. On 12th of October the club announced the return of Steve Mclaren to the lines, the latest held his job for exactly five months before Gary Rowett who did wonders with Birmingham took the post.
| "Foxes star Mahrez on Pearson: "Does he deserve credit for where we are now? I think so, yeah. |
Today, Leicester that under the charge of Ranieri won the EPL but also almost was relegated the next season (which led to the sack of Ranieri one season after he made history). The reins were taken by the assistant Craig Shakespeare who led Leicester to the quarter-final of the Champions League and a safe spot far from the relegation zone with 5 wins in a row (6 including the second match against Sevilla) after he took the job from Ranieri. Shakespeare got a three years deal from the club but didn’t stay there for long, he got sacked last October after the team collected only six points in the first eight games. Claude Puel took charge at King Power and collected 26 out of 51 points sitting at the 8th position (true to the original time this was written).
After leading the team to top half finish although he came as the third manager in that season in March, Gary Rowett was handed with tools to lead The Rams to success and brought in players such as Tom Huddlestone, Andre Wisdom, Tom Lawrance, Sam Winnal and Joe Ledley. Despite the bad start of the season with only three wins after ten games today, the team is feeling comfortable on the second place losing only twice since the 8th week and it seems that the chances to progress to the Premier League are bigger than ever.
What is going on with Pearson you ask? The man behind Leicester promotion to the Premier League and their staying there went downhill to the Second Division in Belgium where he's the manager of OH Leuven. The team is sitting at the third place after 11 games with 16 points in the second games cycle. She finished the first one on the second place only three behind the leaders Beerschot when the winning team of each cycle plays against each other at the end of the season for a place in the Belgium Premier League (First Division A).
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| Today Pearson is the manager of OH Leueven |
This article was originally written on Hebrew on 7 February 2018.
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