Stuart Pearce has been the Manchester City manager for 2 years. He has clearly reached the point where we can view him as a manager who is past the “learning” phase, and we should look at his efforts with a critical eye.
Pearce took charge when Kevin Keegan left and inherited a team that was bereft of confidence, ideas and direction. There was little to be optimistic about, Shaun Wright Philips being one of the few rays of light. To his credit, Pearce managed to muster an end of season rally which took the team to the brink of a UEFA Cup place. Whether this late run of form was caused by any change Pearce brought about or was the usual improvement following a new appointment was neither here nor there, it was a welcome relief from the disappointments of the final months of the Keegan era. Pearce, rightly, was appointed as manager full-time before the end of the season. The last game of that season, a clash with Middlesbrough with a win required for a European place, can be viewed as the first occasion where doubts about Pearce started to be felt by many.
First doubts
Picture the scene, a May day at Eastlands, City need a goal in the last few minutes to secure a European place and Pearce replaces Claudio Reyno with Nicky Weaver so that David James can play as a centre forward. David James? Centre forward? I must admit that at the time I mostly found it amusing that Pearce would try something so bizarre. I was also glad to see Nicky Weaver get back into the team after such a long struggle with injury, so that distracted from the strangeness of the situation. After a few hours I began to take a different view of things.
In bringing James on Pearce managed to insult both Reyna and Jon Macken by implying that a goalkeeper had more chance of scoring that either the midfielder or forward. I know that neither had a scoring record to speak of, however it was still a snub to both.
After the game Pearce did admit that it had been a strange decision and that it probably unsettled our players
as much as those from Middlesbrough. I was happy that he admitted it, but it didn’t take away from the fact that he had done it. That decision was the first that made me doubt Pearce. Until then he’d done a decent job and hadn’t let himself down; since then I’ve been unsure.
SWP leaves and nothing replaces him
Shaun Wright-Philips being sold to Chelsea I don’t blame Pearce for. SWP was going to leave at some point and the offer made by Chelsea was for a ridiculous amount of money. I was sad to see Shaun leave however I feel Pearce is free from whatever blame or recrimination surrounds that decision. This doesn’t mean he is blameless for what has come since.
SWP had been the only real creative outlet for City since the departure of Ali Benarbia. No other player in the team, from an attacking point of view, brought forth a sense of anticipation in City fans or nerves and advance planning from the opposition. Following his departure it was important to bring in some players to replace some of what SWP offered, sadly little has been done.
A quick list of midfielders brought in since SWP left is instructive. Musampa, Dabo, Hamann and Riera are the names who have played more games than any other; not exactly inspiring. Hamann I have plently of time for, and I think he could make a big difference to the team when fit, however he’s not going to create chances for the forwards which has been our long running problem.
Handling the young players
Pearce’s handling of the younger players has not been particularly good in my eyes. Micah Richards is the only younger player to establish himself in the first team and I feel that would have happened under any manager, he is that talented. Sadly he is the sole exception to the established trend.
Croft, Flood and Bradley Wright-Philips were handled shockingly badly in my opinion. All three of them were given ten minutes here and twenty there, along with the occasional start but none of them ever got an extended run to prove himself and all three have now left. Bradley I didn’t feel would make it at the Premiership level, however the other two provided as much to the team when they played as other players have and I would have preferred to see either of them on the wing to Sinclair.
This season Ishmael Miller and Daniel Sturridge probably don’t know whether they’re coming or going with Miller in particular given little chance to show what he can do despite some awful displays by the players occupying “his” position.
The beginning of the end
When we look back at Pearce’s reign I feel that the point that will be pointed to as the beginning of the end is the FA Cup match against West Ham in March 2006. We hadn’t had a fantastic season but it was passable and we looked like we were on the type of run in the cup that might finally give us something to cheer about. The defeat to West Ham started a run in which we won 1 out of the 8 league games at the end of the season. That run continued into this season and has resulted in us taking 33 points in 35 league games since that cup defeat, clearly relegation form.
Some people voice the opinion that City are currently on a bad run. I don’t know whether this is a genuine mistake or a desire to give Pearce an easy ride, regardless they’re wrong. 35 league games is almost a league season. It’s not a poor run, it’s an indication of the quality of players we possess, but more tellingly it shows that the manager is not up to the job.
