The Man In The Glass

 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)