The media are completely in love with the Sean Dyche story and keep talking about him as a candidate.

Could someone tell them that Burnley are now bottom and received roughly the same amount of money for being in the Premiership as Leicester and QPR. The fact that they won"t spend any isn"t exactly a glowing endorsement.

But whilst the reaction from Leicester has been fantastic over the last three weeks, Koemann at Southampton should be manager of the year.

Funny old game football, sacked and quickly re-instated in Feb, possibly manager of the year in April.

To be honest the closer we get to the end of the season, the more I think our position suits Pearson. He's a fighter and he's showing exactly what he did at Carlisle and Southampton, backs against the wall, hands to the pump, fighting for survival.

Strangely enough what I'm learning is although he may not have been the right man to stop the slump in November, he's exactly the right man for what we need now. He is our best chance of staying up, I wouldn't even have Pulis right now. That's a big change in opinion for me.

This is where Pearson thrives but ultimately to be manager of the year, you need to have consistently over achieved throughout the season. Pearson hasn't really. He's had some very low points, struggled tactically at times, made some poor selection decisions etc. He was unable to halt a 20 odd game run without a victory earlier and it's taken for us to be written off by everyone to turn it around.

Don't get me wrong he is doing brilliantly but some may question where these performances were for 5 months. For that reason I would give it to Koeman

^^^ this.

Spot on BS.

Pearson can't be manager of the season for me. To do that at the bottom you need to be operating on limited funds and keep a team mid table.

Pearson has had cash to spend (albeit not a vast amount) an we and he have struggled.

If we do stay up, he will definitely be manager of the last 10 games!!!!

Pardew for me.

Had Newcastle in the top half under horrendous pressure, they collapse without him.

Goes to Palace with them in the bottom 3, has them in with a chance of a top half finish.

Done two good jobs in one season.

Pardew has really shown how good a manager he is, strange season because I wouldn't say any of the top four Managers are in contention.

Blimey BS rating Pearson above Pulis, I think I gonna go and jump of the Tallahatchie Bridge.....

For me the manager of year has to have exceeded expectations, if we stay up I think Pearson has met of slightly exceeded expectations

Pardew has massively exceeded his but for me it has to be Koeman, some pundits had Southampton going down and it looks like they'll end up in Europe

He won't be, no.

But if he keeps us up, who cares?

I'm not sure if something was thrown at NP, or he dropped it, after the second goal. An object fell to the ground to his right. I saw it on SNF interactive, but you can't rewind the images.

I think he just dropped JGs balls in his excitement

Somebody, I absolutely don't rate Pearson above Pulis as a manager but in this situation, with 6 games left, I think I would rather have Pearson. That is a big shift in opinion for me....

..and I know that sounds odd but I think we are beginning to see that Pearson is the ultimate fighter. More so even than Pulis in this situation. But I still think Pulis is a better bet if you want consolidation in the PL

It's looking good for us, right back in the mix now, the remaining games all pretty much , Cup Finals, all teams playing to keep in the league or reach Europe.
NP's beginning to get credit again, the "rub of the green" has turned, now close losses are close wins !
His team selections that are awful decisions to select,
Schmeichel, De-Laet, Morgan, King etc.,when we lose,
are "masterstrokes" when we win !
I wouldn't be too surprised, that if NP, does indeed go on and keep us up, that come end of season he may walk away from the job, or even get offered a job at a mid or upper table team. He remains, for me, whether we stay up or not ,one of our best 3-4 managers since the early 60's.
Congratulations to all the fan's on making it such a difficult place for the opposition to play, the noise created makes a huge difference !
Mersey, Joby, and the like, you better start baking, cos' if we do indeed survive, we gonna need a huge "Humble pie" to distribute.
Think we (Everyone, Lefties & Righties) should all get together and PARTY !

Appleton I disagree. There is a clear difference in tactics and selection policy from when we losing week on week and the last 3 weeks. It's wrong to suggest things have kept the same but it's finally paying off

Albrighton is being utilised in a WB role to great effect. Upson has been absent which I believe has helped. The formation has been tweaked. Vardy is a regular once again and effective. Pearson is tactically matching teams

He hasn't got it right for much of the season and it's this tweaking that is making close defeats become close victories along with our need to go all out to get points

Steady on the humble pie, we are not safe yet and it never looks great when said pie is rammed down other peoples throats because their opinion differs to yours

Yes I think BS nailed this on his original reply.

The frustrating thing for me is the speed at which some people can switch opinions. After achieving two promotions with us NP has already proven that he's got something as a manager. His failures this season don't make him a bad manager, just as the last 3 games don't make him a genius.

Whether we stay up, or not, I think Nigel will have some work to do to really demonstrate he can manage at the highest level. A successful end to the season won't distract from that fact just as, if we go down, it shouldn't dilute his previous achievements with us.

It's probably Koeman or Pardew for me as well, although I think West Brom might have struggled without Pulis.

if we do stay up, however, it truly will be a remarkable achievement from where we were. I've seen the last day escape against Oxford and two League Cup wins, but this would top the lot if it happened: not the greatest achievement, but certainly the most remarkable!

Not sure what I'm eating humble pie for but I'd gobble up every last mouthful if we stay up.

I'm still, and other than TB probably was, the only poster on here that still believed in Pearson as a manager even if we went down.

There's no denying that 5 games ago I ha lost faith in us staying up and accepted that It would probably be best for all parties if Pearson moved on at the end of the season.

But I never stopped thinking he was a good manager, nor that this season should negate everything he's done for our club.

I was to fortunate enough to see Leicester before the 80s so in my era, Pearson is easily the second best manager we've had at our club.

For that reason alone, whenever he does leave he should go with our thanks.

Let's just hope he pulls this off and we don't have to worry about that anytime soon.

Up the City!

Mersey - I think that the humble pie comment was that you'd be baking it for others to eat!

BS - There had been a change in intensity due to the need at the end of the season and tinkering with the formation BUT there were still selections and subs made that had we lost NP would have been pilloried for, for me the difference has been winning, very little else apart from the home support in the last two matches, the away support has always been excellent.

I guess it shows the majority still back us to survive and understand how important a part they can play in that.

My last post didn't make sense.

I didn't see us before the dark days in the 80s so Pearson is the second best manager I've had the opportunity to see manage our club.

I don't really need to hand out humble pie - we all say things in the passion of supporting our club and I understand others have different views to me.

BS for example has shown humility in suggesting that he gets a few things wrong. I was too early to throw the towel in too.

The only thing I don't like is when people can't admit they were wrong. For me it's about balance.

What I do like is that Pearson keeps proving his critics wrong. This makes me happy.

He won't play Albrighton. Wrong.
He can't play anything but 4-4-2. Wrong.

I hope he keeps us up so that TB and Nige can stick 2 fingers up at all the critics.

I'd like to see that a lot.

" still, and other than TB probably was, the only poster on here that still believed in Pearson as a manager even if we went down".

I am and I always was, I believe Nigel and his staff have done a great job in getting us were we are. Maybe his biggest mistake was to put his belief so firmly behind his championship team but I don't think he was only one guilty of that. The players clearly play for him, he never lost the dressing at any stage and getting someone else in with these players in our position would almost certainly have been a disaster.

Mersey,

I've never doubted that NP is a good manager, but I can't honestly say that he's demonstrated emphatically that he can manage a team to perform at the highest level.

Unlike TB, however, I did think that relegation was a certainty. Given that fact I wasn't sure that NP could, or should, be retained as manager. The irony is that we know he's as good manager in the Championship, but I'm not sure that the shift in momentum would be too great if we go down. We know that fans would lose faith very quickly and also it's likely that he'd have to build a new team. I don't think the owners and fans would have the patience for that with expectations raised - whereas a new incumbent would have the benefit of a clean slate.

Naturally I hope we do stay up and that NP is retained but, even then, he'd have some work to do to convince he belongs in the Premier League

Joby, I judge a premier league manager on 3 things:
1. Signings
2. Motivation
3. Tactics

I think Pearson (with his staff) has shown he's very strong on points 1&2. We won't know how much better our signings could have been if we'd not missed out on targets but Pearson doesn't waste money.

Tactically he's been shown up this year. It's only now his hand has been forced to go all out to win games that he's suddenly found his zone.

I think he has shown plenty for me to believe he can cut it. I think his biggest failing this year was being unable to secure his preferred signings and going too defensive with the defensively inept players he had.

Do you think he's a better manager now at this time in the season and he's learned with experience to when the season started, that's the real crux of whether he can progress the team forward should we stay up?

comment by True Blue (U9486)
posted 5 minutes ago
Do you think he's a better manager now at this time in the season an byd he's learned with experience to when the season started, that's the real crux of whether he can progress the team forward should we stay up?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

TB,

It would be easy to answer that question with a yes given our performances over the past few games, but that would make me guilty if the same short termed thinking I've criticised others for.

The truth is that I don't put all of our failures this season down to the manager. When things go wrong it's rarely just down to one thing, just as when things go right, and I doubt that is the case here.

If we do manage to stay up then the club as a whole really needs to prepare in the closed season better than they did this time around.

By the way –talk of Pearson seeing a possible route to salvation over a successful late surge to Premiership survival reminds me of an event some years ago.
I was advising a Group when one of their key plants had a potentially serious fire –which was made worse as it contained a very expensive and one off unit which had been just completed prior to shipment to China.
Thanks mainly to a team of on –site engineers working alongside fire crews –damage was limited to certain areas and the special unit saved – which was financially critical for company.
It transpired that the failure to ensure an adequate program of maintenance on the sprinkler systems had contributed and this came under the responsibility of the works manager.
He had a good record previously and I recollect an impassioned plea that one of the directors made in his defence – especially as the success in saving the factory and special unit was largely under his control- but to balance that we had to assess his lack of professionalism overall and whether we could continue to back his judgement

……………….He was fired!!

Is a fire a fire if it was only ever a fire risk?

What if the manager saw the potential of a fire and put in place the right precautions to prevent the fire.

Then there never was a fire.

Would he have been sacked then?

I'm just glad Pearson isn't in charge of health and safety regulations at the King Power. I guess he should stick to football and recruiting legends like Cambiasso.