Pearson: I was living in semi-retirement in Scotland last year..if someone then had told me I’d be going up against Jose I’d have thought my drink had been spiked!

NIGEL PEARSON once beat Jose Mourinho to a managerof-the-month award despite losing their head-to-head battle.

Four days before Mourinho won the last of his three titles with Chelsea, he inflicted the only defeat of Pearson’s great escape at Leicester City five years ago.

Now the ex-Special One and Pearson (right) are locking horns again in a parallel universe which has left the Watford head coach checking to see if his drink has been spiked.

Last March, Pearson shut himself away in a remote, spartan bothy in north-west Scotland, quietly resigned to semi-retirement and never dreaming for a second that he would be pitting his wits against Mourinho again.

But their reunion, 1,725 days later at Vicarage Road, will be set against an unlikely form guide.

Even more remarkable is that Pearson has transformed the Hornets from Premier League wooden spoonists to the division’s most resurgent side, with 13 points from a possible 15.

Meanwhile, Mourinho’s early promise at Tottenham has stagnated into just four points from the last five games.

“If someone had told me that last year, I would probably look to see what they had spiked my drink with,” said Pearson.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have been thinking it was possible. This is a situation that has come out of nothing. I was more or less semi-retired.

“I went (to Scotland) with the intention of walking, but the weather was so bad I didn’t do a great deal apart from sit around and go to the pub.” Pearson has taken 35 points from a possible 45 in his last 15 games as a Premier League boss. That record dates back to Leicester’s improbable sprint to safety – with seven wins and a draw in their last nine matches – in 2015.

He pipped Mourinho to the monthly managers’ gong in April that year, despite Chelsea inflicting the only setback on Leicester’s great escape with an emphatic 3-1 win at the King Power.

But Pearson shrugged: “In all honesty, it’s not important.

“If you look at Jose’s record that month, statistically it was better than mine.”