I’M ONLY MAKING PLANS FOR WATFORD SAYS NIGEL
Pearson: I know my place in the Leicester story and if fans think I helped build the 2016 title team, that’s great.. but I’m at a different club with a different focus
NIGEL PEARSON takes on Leicester for the first time since he was sacked for lighting the path towards their title miracle, insisting: “I know my place in the story.”
Five years, almost to the day, since he walked the plank at the King Power, Pearson finds himself hunting the Foxes as Watford reboot their relegation battle at Vicarage Road.
In 2015, Pearson was architect of a great escape as Leicester plundered 22 points from a possible 27. Twelve months later, the team he built won the title as 5,000-1 no-hopers under Claudio Ranieri.
When the Hornets manager was told that many fans credit him with laying the foundation for Leicester’s astonishing title triumph in 2016, he shrugged: “Do they? If that is the case, then great.
“But at the moment my absolute focus is on us retaining our status – nothing else is really important.
“I have spent two spells as manager at Leicester and had success in both periods and enjoyed my time there. I still have a lot of respect for the football club, the people who run and own it.
“I know my place in the story. But now I am at a different club, with a different challenge, and doing everything I can to find my own way here. Now my job is to do what I can to achieve what we need this season and then build something new next year.”
Pearson was less keen to share the secrets of Leicester’s amazing revival, although he did concede: “The biggest thing when you are involved in something like this is whether you believe you can do it. During that campaign, we had a togetherness and a shared mentality which was very, very important for us. I look at us here at the moment and I realise we have talented players here, a good group of people.”
This fixture will always be synonymous with 18 seconds of play-off mayhem in 2013 when Anthony Knockaert’s thespian fall and saved penalty at one end, and
Troy Deeney’s winner that sent Watford to Wembley at the other, was delicious karma. Pearson, whose bench that day included young strikers Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy – whatever happened to them? – was on the wrong end of the drama.
He said: “Apart from disbelief and feeling a bit sick, it’s difficult to give an honest answer to what I felt at the time. If you are a Watford fan, it will be the same feelings but in reverse – you are expecting to feel really hard done by and then you go ‘how did that happen?’
“That’s the beauty of sport. There has to be an element of incredulity. But when you are on the receiving end, it’s not very nice. We recovered from it.”
Deeney, who sat out the first phase of Project Restart citing “unanswered questions” over players’ safety, is fit and available to haunt Leicester again.
Pearson said: “The bottom line, as far as Troy is concerned, is that nobody has been forced to come to work without wanting to.
“All the players have decided to commit to what we are trying to achieve. Let’s not give too much exposure to the people who want to look at negative angles of this.”