Pearson: I just want to be liked
Manager admits he has added to colourful image Watford appointment surprised even himself
He will first be remembered as the man who built the most extraordinary Premier League title-winning team in history, and was not in a job long enough to see them win it, but Nigel Pearson admitted yesterday that his reputation goes a lot further than just the Leicester City miracle.
The new Watford manager, back in the Premier League after more than four years, said that he accepted his colourful reputation – ostriches, a James Mcarthur throat grab and a bit more beyond – and that same reputation might also have deterred some club owners. Not so the Pozzo family, who have appointed Pearson to save Watford from relegation, a task that the new manager says is possible despite the six-point gap to safety.
His previous job in football was with the second-tier Belgian side OH Leuven, and Watford are his 12th appointment as a manager or an assistant. As he prepares to face leaders Liverpool at Anfield tomorrow, becoming Watford’s third manager this season, Pearson said that he did care about perceptions of him as being difficult or aloof and that he would prefer to be liked.
He said: “I have had a bit of a varied career, but what it has given me is a broad view and the ability to be open-minded – but that doesn’t mean I’m not clued up about what I am myself. I know I have at times probably been perceived as difficult to work with and have had some colourful and memorable events. But a lot of that was born out of trying to protect my players.”
Asked whether he cared, he said that he very much did. “I’m a human being. I’m like anybody else. You would prefer to be liked rather than disliked, wouldn’t you? But I also have to accept that I have been largely responsible for creating a persona. But do you really need to get to know me? Not necessarily.
“We all change with time, but I would like to hope I have not really changed very much. I’m somebody who likes to be valued. And I value people’s contributions. The values by which I work are very high on my priority list of what’s important in my world.”
He has had the week to work with his players, having been, as he said himself “very pleasantly surprised” at how motivated he had found himself when Watford turned to him following their second sacking of Quique Sanchez
Flores. Pearson has a strong track record in relegation battles, saving Leicester in the 2014-2015 Premier League season with a run of seven wins in their final nine games. He was manager at Carlisle United in 1999 when they escaped dropping out of the Football League with a goal from on-loan goalkeeper Jimmy Glass.
At West Bromwich Albion, he was Bryan Robson’s assistant in the great escape of 2005.
“I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel,” he said. “It would be slightly foolish of me to think there’s going to be a revolution that changes lots and lots of things.
“First and foremost, it’s the mindset of the players. If it has been damaged, if their confidence has been eroded, then myself and the staff will do everything we can to help them on the journey.”
As for Pearson’s journey, he was enthusiastic about his time in Belgium, an appointment that came in 2017 after his rapprochement with the late Leicester owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, who had bought OH Leuven in the May of that year.
Pearson said that any discussion of his departure from Derby County in October 2016, his only job in England since Leicester, was precluded by a confidentiality agreement, although he did seem to push back against allegations at the time of a monumental fall-out with owner Mel Morris.
On that four-month period, he said: “I think there were a number of things that were speculated on that were not fair.”
His first home game will be a week on Sunday against Manchester United, upon whom his Leicester side inflicted a famous 5-3 defeat in September 2014. Since his time in Belgium, Pearson said that there had been job offers from Championship clubs, but Watford were the first from the Premier League. Did he ever think he would be straight back in the top flight? “You want a one word answer? No,” he said.