The Man In The Glass
Just a couple of months
prior to his sacking at Southampton, in a routine interview Nigel Adkins began
to recite Dale Wimbrow’s 1934 poem ‘The Man in the Glass’. The intention was to
present an air of calm assuredness in response to questions about his job; the
actual effect was more questions raised about his ability to cope than had been
answered.
In a world where
blaming others is a natural reflex, eyebrows lifted. Integrity is seldom
acclaimed in the cutthroat environment of The Premier League where everyone
wants a piece of you and judgement is so readily passed.
Almost two and a half
years later, Adkins reflection has faded fast and struggling with his own
mirror image is Nigel Pearson at Leicester City.
If much has changed for
Adkins in two and half years, it could be argued that almost as much has
changed in just ten months for Pearson. The confetti that smattered the streets
of Leicester in celebration of a title-winning season has blown away, any
champagne that remained (unlikely given that lips had waited a decade to savour
the sweet taste of success) has long gone flat and everything that brought hope
now delivers only despair.
There are few
certainties in football but that Leicester City will be back plying their trade
in The Championship next season is one, following a dismal draw at home to Hull
City. Nigel Pearson is experiencing an identity crisis.
With twenty minutes
remaining in an encounter Pearson himself had, with an uncharacteristic
admission, termed ‘must-win’, Leicester were given a lifeline as Tom
Huddlestone’s clumsiness saw him dismissed for a second bookable offence. Here
were Leicester presented with a jugular that last season they would not have
even required an invitation to go for.
They ambled. Pearson
waited.
As 28,000 onlookers urged
Pearson to seize the initiative and relent from a 5-man defence at home, the
most he could venture was a winger substituted on in place for a right
wingback. That the winger was Tom Lawrence - a young player of possible
potential but who has only ever looked like a child amongst men in a Leicester
shirt - meant that not a lot was gained. With ten minutes of the lifeline
whittled away, finally came the throw of the dice as David Nugent came on for
Wes Morgan (captain of the sinking ship who has been crying out for his own
lifeline for the past three months).
It beggared belief.
Everything that made
Leicester great just last season – and with a 102-point campaign they were undoubtedly
great - was sorely absent. In place of pace, vitality, intensity and desire,
the experience that Pearson has desperately crammed into his side in the hope
of salvaging something from a disastrous season looked like it didn’t have the
energy to raise the tempo to one that even a poor, ten-men Hull side wouldn’t
be able to resist.
Upson staggered,
Schwarzer dallied and Cambiasso tired.
Outside the club shop
the stars of last season (Drinkwater, Schmeichel, Morgan and Moore) are plastered
imposing and eminent. Rather ironically, alongside their images a slogan of ‘#fearless’
resides. None have made a positive impact this season and none have been
intrepid. But how could they now be when they are lead by a man who has become
scared to lose?
The answer for Pearson as
to where the blame lies for the insipid culmination to a season that promised
so much does not start and end with ‘The Man in the Glass’. He understandably
initially kept faith with the players who delivered success and opted to give
them the opportunity that their performances last season suggested that they
deserved. Until now, no team promoted with over 100 points has looked like
being anywhere near close to relegation.
Perversely however, the
players have rarely failed Pearson or betrayed his trust. Leicester are yet to
take one of the thrashings that seem to come with the territory of being The
Premier League’s basement boys. They have been in almost every game they have
played but, time and again, they have come up short through a lack of quality
or simple, unforeseen individual errors.
January provided a
second chance to rectify a lack of recruitment. In keeping with what has
happened on the pitch, it was another chance missed. When Leicester needed
players coming in as soon as the window opened, it was creaking shut as they
did their most crucial business. Even as the latch clicked, the feeling was
that not enough had been incoming to cover frailties exposed by unforgiving opponents
up until the turn of the year.
Pearson has, on too
many occasions, failed his players. After the euphoria of the 5-3 victory over
Manchester United – a straw that has become tattered from the frequency with
which it has been clutched at by Leicester fans – he tried to become too astute.
Leicester were set-up to counter their opposition rather than to stay true to
everything that had got them to the top of that cloud on which they sat as
Leonardo Ulloa stroked home the fifth against United.
At times this meant
that Riyad Mahrez, a gem of player who will undoubtedly grace the upper echelons
of European football next season even if Leicester City do not, was
inexplicably omitted despite being the team’s main creative outlet. At other
times the absence of Marc Albrighton and Anthony Knockaert has proved just as
bewildering as the ever-presence of Wes Morgan whilst Leicester’s best defender
this season Marcin Wasilewski sits on the bench.
Away from the football
field, some of the decisions Pearson has taken have been bizarre. There was the
incident where he swore at a fan which, whilst somewhat deserved, showed a lack
of composure and self-control in testing times. Next there was the infamous
McArthur incident which clearly started as a joke but then distorted into
something more both in terms of how it was perceived by the player himself and
in which it was then reported by the media (not helped by Pearson’s face-saving
attempts). Finally, we have arrived at a post-match press conference in which
Pearson has sworn at a journalist for pernickety questions – yet again allied
with the territory.
In the intense, scrutiny-filled
world of The Premier League, Pearson has seemingly failed to acknowledge that
the judgemental eyes cast over him are more than just those staring back at him
in the mirror.
Away from the camera
and microphones those who know him speak of a likeable, jovial man. Those
holding them experience a different person and his conduct has belied the
gracious, considered, assured persona of last season. Better managers have belligerently
taken on the press pack and it is simply an additional battle that Pearson
shouldn’t need this season and yet another that he will not win.
There is an air of
resignation about Nigel Pearson currently. The figure he cuts is of a man
eroded by the pressure of a nightmare first season managing in The Premier
League and, with that, a careless abandon of a man answerable only to himself. Unfortunately
for him, questions will soon be demanded by both the Leicester fans and Thai
owners who have shown a commendable and admirable patience this season in an
era when managerial changes occur with the transient weather.
Despite being in many
ways old-fashioned – one suspects that the lack of recruitment in January may
have been due to his reluctance to pander to the whims of modern players and
agents - Nigel Pearson is a progressive manager. The scouting set-up and performance
analysis team that accompanies him everywhere he goes is testament to that and
Pearson is open to learning (see his positioning of himself in the stand for
the majority of both this season and last). With every difficulty he has faced
at Leicester, he has overcome adversity and learned, making the changes necessary
to allow the team to be a success.
There is no doubt that
Pearson will learn his biggest lesson from this season. Given time to step back
and evaluate everything that has gone before he will become a better manager
(and this season has not made him a bad one). Whether that is for the benefit
of Leicester City or another club remains to be seen - time and patience at The
King Power Stadium is wearing thin. One thing that is however for sure is that
that lesson has to begin with the man in the mirror.
In the confines of his
own home, if Nigel Pearson were to honestly evaluate the man staring back at himself
currently, he may find that the very guy looking back towards him has deviated
so far from what he once was that he now resembles foe rather than friend. And,
as Wimbrow wrote, it is that man’s judgement that he must satisfy first.
For it isn't
your Father, or Mother, or Wife,
Who
judgement upon you must pass.
The feller
whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the guy
staring back from the glass.
He's the
feller to please, never mind all the rest,
For he's
with you clear up to the end,
And you've
passed your most dangerous, difficult test
If the guy
in the glass is your friend.
(Extract
from ‘The Man in the Glass’ by Dale Wimbrow, 1934)
