Wednesday 10 October 2012

Talk Is Cheap



Talk Is Cheap

Jamie Barnard  on how Nigel Pearson's dignified silence has set the tone for his Leicester City side's promotion push... 

 

A rebuff, a refusal, a rejection. Interviewing Nigel Pearson must be no easy task.  Pearson is a man of few words and no plainer has this been than in recent weeks. Through the times in which it seemed any old Tom, Dick and Harry was talking about his job, Pearson closed rank and those stiff lips remained firmly fastened.

Pearson does his talking on the pitch and his team is his mouthpiece.

Delivering the boldest of statements, his Leicester City charges delivered a fifth consecutive league win against Bristol City to, albeit briefly, climb to the summit of The Championship table. Whilst people were talking Pearson’s side up, convincing wins were the substance amid such chatter, lifting Leicester City up the table.

Rewind little under a week and within hours of that fourth, emphatic, straight win at Huddersfield - in which The Foxes converted two of their eighteen shots and limited their hosts to just three – a national newspaper rolled out a match report proclaiming that, in spite of such feats, Harry Redknapp would still be filling those boots not yet parched from touchline rain in West Yorkshire.

A penny for Pearson’s thoughts.

Talk is cheap, but Pearson’s words are limited edition. He is a man who refuses to speculate and not even Leicester’s millionaire Thai owners would have riches deep enough to prize from Pearson more than a branding of such speak as a “minor irritant”. His is a soliloquy of high value.

Such a quality is a commodity in the modern football world. In the very same week as Pearson’s dignified silence, those of higher standing were left speechless as care-free mutterings came back to haunt them. Tongues were wagging.
Roy Hodgson, England manager, was left with the no-doubt awkward, and likely futile, task of convincing Rio Ferdinand that his international swansong was a croon belonging to the rat race rather than the rat pack after a commuter revealed Hodgson’s underground admission that Ferdinand was not in his plans. Regrets, both now have a few.

And Ashley Cole, never found left wanting for words, took to Twitter to criticise the FA’s latest ramblings in the long, drawn-out John Terry racism case. Miserly Cole’s one hundred and forty characters may have been, but the financial consequences of ‘the Twittersphere’ have never been so grand. Albeit a drop in the ocean of Cole’s wealth, the misconduct charge he now faces will likely being with it a hefty fine.

Hash tag: costly.

But Nigel Pearson is not a man of the new age. From the old school he graduated and to him Twitter is, as the rumour that besmirches it, simply cheep. The fruits of his labour more scouting network than social network one might deduce.

They say a picture paints a thousand words and the one painted at The King Power Stadium last Saturday should carry greater sway with the club’s owners than any careless whisper with which they may have solicited Redknapp in rumoured meetings. ‘Don’t Go Martin’ stuff this was not, but a vocal demonstration of support for Pearson rolled from the terraces surrounding the pitch with the smooth flow of the table-topping football being played on it.

A message to anxious owners delivered. Received, loud and clear.

Leicester City now walk the walk, and the mark of the man is found in the essence of a Pearson side that has quietly strung together a run of consecutive wins which threatens to rival the all-time club record of seven. Impenetrable, unnerved, restrained. For that old Leicester City confidante the nearly man, the cold shoulder has never felt cooler.

As they head into the winter months sterner tests will no doubt lie ahead. Trips to Birmingham City, Watford and Bolton lay on the horizon. The eulogy may yet be premature. But that early season indicator of ten games has arrived. If the declaration it makes is anything to go by then, come May, Leicester City and Nigel Pearson will be more than just the talk of the town.


Credit Kimmiji2012 via Flickr for Redknapp photo
Credit nicksarebi via Flickr for Hodgson photo
Credit hst43077 via Flickr for Pearson photo 

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