The knives are out for PearceUpdated: February 22nd, 2007
The row over the vacant England Under 21 manager’s job is turning ugly - and suggests there is more going on than concern over losing Pearce for the odd few days this season.
First there was this report in The Guardian revealing that Wardle and Mackintosh held a three-hour meeting on Friday night to discuss the situation. Next was Pearce’s announcement after the Southampton game that he had accepted the job, followed by club’s official statement two hours later stating they hadn’t given him permission. If all this is bad enough, the story that appeared in the Daily Mail late last night was absolute dynamite.
The paper quoted a “senior City source” who revealed that not only was the club opposed to Pearce taking charge of friendlies, but they would not allow Pearce to do any scouting of Under 21 players during the season either. But it was the claims further down the story that make you question whether Pearce has a future at City:
It is understood City feel the ex-England captain’s ego has got the better of him and he believes himself to be a more capable coach than he really is.
Reservations about Pearce’s long-term future at City already exist at the club after a period of months that have seen his team’s performances vary from the satisfactory to the unacceptable.
Quite how Pearce will feel when he reads those words is anybody’s guess. But the double whammy of being denied the England role and the board briefing against him might be enough for the patriotic Pearce to pack his bags.
The “senior City source” Sportsmail spoke to is probably director Dennis Tueart, who represents shareholder David Makin and who has a long history of briefing the press on the board’s behalf. In his autobiography, Joe Royle reveals how he was offered the City job by Tueart when Frank Clark was still manager. According to Clark’s autobiography, Kicking With Both Feet, Clark only found out he was to be sacked after talking to a journalist from, curiously enough, the Daily Mail, who broke the story.
Recent events certainly make you wonder whether the board are now seriously questioning Pearce’s position. Earlier today I was informed that a sports psychologist has been brought it to work with the team. I haven’t yet established who was behind the appointment, or whether it has Pearce’s full blessing. But there’s a suggestion that history may be repeating itself.
In his autobiography, Royle complained about Tueart’s interference in team matters. In Royle’s last season, Tueart was spending up to four lunchtimes a week at the Carrington training complex where he “aired his thoughts and opinions to players and staff”. On a day Royle took off to support his wife, who was undergoing chemotherapy, Tueart appointed fitness coach Juan Carlos Osario. Royle sent him back to the US, and in an end-of-season meeting in a Rusholme curry house, told chairman David Bernstein that he didn’t want Tueart at the training ground the following season. Four days later Royle was sacked.