By his own admission, the initial contact between Bristol City and Nigel Pearson came out of the blue. The manager was downstairs at home in Devon making bacon sandwiches (red sauce, we can only presume) when his wife alerted him to a missed call.
A Zoom conversation with Steve Lansdown and a few hours later and Pearson was being offered the job to turn around the fortunes of the club; an experience and challenge he probably didn’t envisage when he woke that Sunday morning.
It’s a year to the day since Pearson was first appointed at Ashton Gate, initially until the end of the season, and the element of surprise has been something of a constant narrative throughout his time in the south West.
Before we discuss the here and now, and of course what is hopefully to come, we first have to travel back to consider the circumstances in which the 58-year-old was appointed, with that contact from Lansdown less than 24 hours after a listless home performance against Barnsley in the wake of Dean Holden’s dismissal.
Holden had lost his job in slightly uncomfortable circumstances the previous Tuesday following defeat to Reading inside a cavernous Ashton Gate which provided an eerie and rather sad backdrop to the well-liked head coach exiting stage right.
Assembled media high up the Lansdown Stand waited and waited for updates after Holden’s post-match press conference had been cancelled in the wake of a sixth-straight defeat, claims of his dismissal were already leaking, yet it took more than an hour after full-time before confirmation landed.
Holden’s ascension to the role had, of course, been divisive given his lack of experience, the fact he was viewed - slightly unfairly at the time and increasingly so now - as a continuation of Lee Johnson’s methods and because of concerns over the influence of CEO Mark Ashton (even though it was a decision that had as much of an approval from Jon Lansdown than it did Ashton).
To his credit, Holden had actually very quickly united the club due to his everyman likeability and a positive run of results. But as they went south, amid devastating and continuous injuries, very quickly did the “I told you so’s” emerge, conversations likely to have also repeated within the corridors of power at Ashton Gate.
Although the Johnson-Holden similarities were a little misplaced - and even more so 18 months on given their frayed relationship - Pearson represented the antithesis to this idea of a “head coach” apparently in fealty to those in the boardroom.
He is, as you well know and as strong an example of this cliché as you’ll get in football, very much his own man. Not a rebel or with a selfish streak, but someone of his own mind with an absolute wealth of experience, both as a player and a coach.
His very demeanour brought a sense of authority back to the club that many felt was missing. That Chris Hughton-related itch from the previous summer had very much been scratched with a cooling balm applied - Nige: For Men.
Straight-talking, simple and with one of the most finely-tuned and accurate bulls*** detectors in association football, it wasn’t a premeditated intention to appoint a manager who cut through so much of the frustrations of the previous five years, but it certainly looked that way.
With the threat of relegation and, as the accounts have since born out, likely financial catastrophe a very real prospect, securing those opening two wins - at Middlesbrough when he was in the stands and Swansea City pitchside - gave everybody a sense of breathing space and also a very immediate realisation that Pearson was exactly what they needed.
It’s not sensationalist to say that very quickly the 58-year-old established something of a cult-like following. And, unlike some managers who very obviously and deliberately manipulate a fanbase with how they act or what they say, it felt very organic and unintentional on his part; if Pearson is a populist, on the face of it, he’s a deeply reluctant one.
He did feed into that concept that so many had been right throughout the Johnson-Holden years that an experienced, “proven” head was needed, rather than experimentation, but there was more to it than that.
He is an engaging character, with a unique charm and manner whose apparent reluctance to indicate he gains overt enjoyment from the sport which has made his career, and therefore much of his life, makes him a fascinating character, often laden with curious quirks.
Intimidating, to a point, but also with a natural warmth; deadly serious but with a very acute sense of humour; a deeply passionate and competitive individual but also one who creates a sense of psychological detachment from the sport when he can, unlike so many of his peers.
That slight sense of curious wonder and the fact he got so many supporters onside early, enabled that declining form to be overlooked, one win between March 3 and May 8, as the Robins drifted into lower mid-table anonymity as the injuries continued leading to a raft of fresh-faced academy players emerging into the first-team environment.
Confirmation of Ashton’s summer departure to Ipswich Town, and the lingering frustration over his role in Holden, Andy Rolls, Famara Diedhiou’s contract and the questionable recruitment decisions that were emerging, also provided a nifty distraction point and further reinforced the concept that City needed fixing, and in Pearson there were few better restorers.
He was magnanimous enough to admit, prior to being given a three-year contract, that it’s not as if h is record had justified it, but that was missing the point to an extent because clearly the Lansdowns weren’t in “win-now” mode, as they hadn’t been for much of Johnson’s tenure until the time came for success in 2019/20 and he fell short.
With Ashton exiting, the CEO having been entrusted with running so much of the football operation, they needed a manager not only to provide a guiding hand and wisdom on the field but also in the boardroom and behind the scenes.
Again to bring in one of those slight contradictions, Pearson is one such “proper old school football man” - a 16-year playing career, 23 years in coaching and management - but he also isn’t given how few of the traditional stereotypes he doesn’t conform to.
He is a troubleshooter and organiser and the first aspect of the club that needed addressing was in the medical department, as Dave Rennie was very sharply recruited, and with the need for large scale cuts to the wage bill, little time was wasted in making decisions on certain players.
The decisions were, in many ways, made for him given just how many were out of contract that summer but pulling the plug on Jamie Paterson’s time at the club was, in itself, a strong sign of what he wanted to achieve.
There is no questioning the playmaker’s ability - you only have to look at how he’s flourished at Swansea - but Pearson alluded to the sense of comfort he had enjoyed at City, having been at the club for five years. And comfortable players don’t tend to allow for new concepts to enable a culture change.
It still may not seem this way, as his eight goals and five assists for the Swans indicate, but moving someone like Paterson on was absolutely essential.
That the club possessed emerging talents of the calibre of Alex Scott and Ayman Benarous also helped, enabling that salary to disappear, knowing that it also freed up roles in the squad for both teenagers, something that has been a key tenet of Pearson’s reign. It was made loud and clear on the opening day of the 2021/22 campaign when Scott started at No10 ahead of the more experienced Kasey Palmer.
All about perception
The summer had underwhelmed to a point but for once there wasn’t the angst within the fanbase and considerable credit should go to Pearson for his role as a communicator and realist. He stated in June he wanted five players - he got four of them, while Danny Simpson, Andi Weimann and Nathan Baker renewed their contracts.
With 10 first-team players leaving, it could well have been chaotic - and maybe it was behind the scenes - but the common sense arrivals of Andy King and Matty James, coupled with the intrigue around Rob Atkinson and George Tanner made it a calming window, sensibly lowering the bar of ambition for the first time in years.
Whether that’s a good thing, of course, depends on your own personal preference. There remains a strong proportion of fans who don’t necessarily have time or money for rebuilds and taking steps back to hopefully lunge forward in the future. If other clubs can progress, why can’t we?
As a side point, those transfer deals not only helped show the new financial landscape for City, as they were all to varying degrees “value purchases” but also the two sides of Pearson; in the cases of King, James and Simpson, these were established Championship figures, clearly personal choices of the manager; Atkinson and Tanner, however, products of the technical scouting team coupled with Pearson’s positional desires.
And those aspects have not only governed his management in some ways, but also shown that he’s not always the old-school, authoritarian figure many would have you believe.
But clearly with such a huge reshaping of the squad, amid the impact on the transfer market for both buyers and sellers and a requirement to lower the wage bill and introduce a significant number of academy players into the first-team squad, that’s not a formula that screams, “possible play-off challenge”.
And that realigning of expectations was a notable early success for the manager, especially in the age of instant gratification and, in fairness, with supporters’ own financial and personal situation likely impacted by the pandemic. It takes a lot to tell people to part with significant time and money and get them on board for a journey in which the route and destination remain uncertain.
Again, managers like Johnson and Holden probably wouldn’t have been able to achieve that, and while Pearson has created moments of doubt, in the main there have been a strong following happy to place their trust in him.
That was reinforced by City’s solid but unspectacular start as they lost just twice in the opening nine league games but scored just 10 goals. But that screamed “foundations” with Pearson making City a tough, resolute and competitive team cast in his image and solving the attacking puzzle would take a little longer, albeit with concerns about whether he had the right personnel to do so with Andi Weimann, Chris Martin and Nahki Wells all in their 30s.
However, after the perhaps high point of that period of the season was reached with the 1-1 draw against Fulham, including a Kasey Palmer goal off the bench that gave rise to the theory that maybe, just maybe Pearson could be the man to solve that particular riddle, it all soon began to be shed with the autumn wind.
Pearson’s first Covid-related leave of absence was reacted to with sympathy, as City lost to Millwall and then pulled a brilliant result out against Peterborough United but after the manager returned during the international break, the lesson that Bournemouth delivered in front of an initially-confident and buoyant Ashton Gate was a very prominent reality check.
It also further highlighted City’s dismal home form, as a rather indistinct - at least at the time - win over Huddersfield on January 26 was the last shred of lasting celebration the Robins faithful could enjoy in their home.
Thankfully that 17-game run ended against Barnsley, Pearson’s now famous arms outstretched celebration at full-time among the images of the season: Nige, the redeemer.
But it was a temporary respite from what proved a miserable November as the manager once again needed time away from work after a truly horrible performance at Birmingham City but Coventry City proved an even greater nadir, as that sense of disorganisation was amplified with City conceding three goals against the 10-man Sky Blues.
That period then coincided with a series of wicked whispers about the manager’s future; social media ablaze during the international break amid rumours Pearson had quit/was being asked to stand down/had been dismissed… none of which proved to be the case as he strode back into Failand 10 days later, guns blazing and threatening those individuals who weren’t “onside” with his methods, fuelling more theories as to who those individuals could be.
It also marked an interesting moment in the sense it was the first time the manager had properly let loose and directly criticised not just individual players but a potential cultural issue that still existed from previous regimes and was the first public-showing of his irritation.
There was an initial reaction, with good performances against Blackburn and Stoke City but still an overwhelming sense that City were struggling through matches, never really in control; something that was cruelly revealed against Sheffield United, which also cost them Nathan Baker, arguably Pearson’s most Nigel Pearson-like defender, for what could be the remainder of the season.
Indeed, it wasn’t until late December/early January, when signs of a discernible style in possession emerged. Pearson was later to touch on it, albeit with slight reluctance given how blasé he is about advertising tactical shifts, with a desire to be braver on the ball, something which has then transpired into 2022 at the behest of the team's defensive ability.
That facet of his management has been among the most interesting as we’ve heard from the manager several times as to what he wants City to be, “fast-paced and direct” in an attacking sense but also tight at the back, while recently he’s decried the team’s inability to be hard to beat and not create draws out of defeats when they’ve been second best.
In formation
In the space of 12 months there have been several iterations of a Pearson team: a 4-4-2 merchant, he isn't.
The closing stages of 2020/21 don’t properly count in assessing his "style", given the experimentation that was happening but from a tight 4-2-3-1-ish system at the start of this campaign, despite voicing a reticence over it in September, Pearson then gradually shifted to three at the back.
There was a brief return of an orthodox defence in December but half-time of the Millwall victory altered that, and he returned to a trio. While Middlesbrough last Saturday witnessed a whole new set-up with Joe Williams playing deep as a “front sweeper”.
There are two ways of looking at that, either Pearson is extremely tactical flexible and not wedded to one means of playing, happy to alternate between formations dependent on the identity of the opposition, the players available to him or how the team have been playing.
Or, he doesn’t quite know how he wants to play just yet and what and who constitutes his “best XI”. The answer is likely to be in the middle, with him showing a wish to eventually morph into a 4-3-3, something he’s been denied so far due to the composition of his midfield.
That aspect has been hampered by the return of persistent injury issues, albeit not at the same frequency as last season with James and Andy King unfortunate regular absentees, Baker potentially out for the season and Tanner, Atkinson and Semenyo, until December, spending significant time on the sidelines.
Naysayers will point to a case of the “same old” with regards to the medical staff but, in truth, as Pearson has alluded to, Atkinson and Tanner are not only making a step up in terms of ability to the Championship, but also with regards to the physical demands.
King and James’ health and availability was never going to be fully consistent, given their previous injury troubles and Semenyo was a hangover from last season after first undergoing surgery in late April.
But any doubts and/or concerns about City’s ongoing injury issues and whether or not Rennie has made an impact, are surely countered by the output of Weimann and Chris Martin.
They rank No1 and No3 in the squad for minutes played this season, with the Austrian returning from an ACL which robbed him of most of the 2020/21 season and Martin, who’s three years his senior, a calf problem that knocked out the second half of that campaign.
That both have not only returned to first-team action but have played hugely significant roles is testament to their professionalism, hunger and determination but also the work behind the scenes, as they’ve regularly been quick to praise.
Martin, at 33, has played his most minutes in a season since 2015/16 - including starting each of the first 23 matches - and there are still 13 games remaining that’ll likely mean it’s the third-highest amount of minutes he’s had in a single campaign.
Weimann, meanwhile, has been astonishing in his reliability, durability and efficiency in front of goal, scoring 16 - fourth best in the Championship - with a finishing rate of 26 per cent.
Yes, huge credit must go to these players but also the manager and his staff for putting them in a position to perform and, most impressively, improve despite being in their 30s.
That concept of development has been Pearson’s guiding principle and although it’s not manifested itself in the team, at least not consistently, it very much has so in a number of individuals.
Along with Weimann and Martin, the leaps made by Antoine Semenyo, Cam Pring and Han-Noah Massengo (some could say that was inevitable) have been huge, to the point that two of them can feasibly be spoken of as £10m+ players.
Scott’s progression has also been remarkably seamless, playing in a host of positions and possessing that attribute that so many young and talented players sometimes lack - consistency. There are few games you come away from now thinking the 18-year-old hasn’t played at least a 7/10. It’s less than a year since he signed his first professional deal and yet he appeared a seasoned pro.
It’s talent and application, undoubtedly, but it’s also a manager being able to place trust and responsibility in individuals and be rewarded for it.
We shouldn’t ignore the financial implications of such huge spikes in performance as well. It’s an uncomfortable conversation, of course, but with debts of £38.4m, having those assets steadily appreciating eases a lot of pressure around the building.
And this perhaps ties back to the overall theme regarding Pearson, a lot of what we expected hasn’t transpired. The gruff stoicism of the caricature the manager sometimes projects hasn’t been replicated on the field but instead City have become a vibrant attacking side, full of youthful endeavour and excitement.
Likewise, Pearson himself isn’t necessarily a hands-on coach - and this where maybe Curtis Fleming’s work gets a little overlooked - but yet he has created an environment for young players to thrive and improve, to the betterment of them as individuals, the team and potentially the balance sheet.
He has ticked certain boxes, the very public damnation of Tyreeq Bakinson was a message not only to the players but the outside world as to what won’t be tolerated. Likewise his mild irritation last week at Jon Lansdown’s assessment of the team.
That “incident”, if you want to call it that, was interesting in itself because it revealed two fundamental things outside of the subject matter: a reinforcement that Pearson is, of course, “his own man” but also that the fanbase, by and large, remain firmly behind him.
That alone is a notable achievement for a manager with a largely unremarkable record but whose success, at least at this moment in time, is being viewed beyond the scoreline at 5pm on a Saturday.
It is surprising to see such patience in football in 2022 and, of course, such are the swings in emotion in the sport, it can very easily change - as has seemed to be the case throughout City’s inconsistencies. But having waited this long for a Pearson-like figure, he appears to have delivered enough drops of dopamine, adrenaline and optimism to consider it, if you like, a surprisingly positive start.
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