Pearson sacking discloses football’s fickle nature

Football is a beautiful game. The game has become a part of our lives and we fans somehow have begun to identify ourselves with the game and with the clubs we support.

The unity, spirit and emotions of the game never ceases to encapsulate the viewer and this is why football is known as the best sport on the planet.

But there is a flip side to the coin. The beautiful game is also a multi million dollar conglomerate which has a huge turnover and revenue through which it employs thousands of people under its umbrella.

And one of the most important employees which come under the umbrella of the organization of world football are the managers of the teams.

The game has changed a lot. Gone are the days when the players took all the limelight for their skills and where the manager was just another guy standing on the touchline. Modern football is a tactical mind game not only between the 22 players on the pitch, but more importantly between the managers of the respective teams.

The manager is the boss and the players have to obey the commandments of the boss if they are to stay in the team and if they want to win. Managers have taken precedence over the players for quite sometime now.

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But, contemporary football is so ruthless that the boss is also not safe from the sack.

Nigel Pearson is the latest victim of such an unrelenting and stony world of modern football. Pearson’s Leicester securing their Premier League status this past season is one of the best escapes I have seen in a long time in the Premier league.

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Not only I wasn’t expecting a sack (I’m sure neither did Pearson), but I was actually expecting some kind of a bonus for him from the management for the way he rallied his team to victories are the end of the season securing their safety.

I am also not denying that Pearson’s stay has not been without its downfalls. He got himself into quite a number of controversies including the one where he seemed to choke an opposition player on the touchline and where he called a journalist an ostrich, although he apologized for the same.

Granted the fact that such antics don’t bear good for the image of a club like Leicester City who are on the road towards building a good reputation in the League, but still I would say Pearson did not deserve the sack as he pulled off something which was deemed as an impossible task by many.

A manager’s job is diverse. Although his task is to make the team perform at the highest level but is also a symbol for the club he manages outside the pitch. A team is often seen as a direct representation of the manager’s persona and charisma.

The supporters of Pearson being sacked would most probably say that although he guaranteed Premier League safety, he was a bad influence on the image of the club.

For me though, a sacking of a manager should be done by analyzing the fact that whether he did the job he was brought in to do, and in this aspect Nigel has been immensely successful.

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The main reason is that, football nowadays has become very volatile and impatient. Where the fans demand quick success so that they can rub it in the faces of the opposition; the management won’t tolerate any misbehavior or a slight underachievement on the part of the manager and players both, no matter how they perform on the pitch.

Roberto Di Matteo lead a mediocre Chelsea team to Champions league success which was seen as the Holy Grail by Abramovich and the next season, he was sacked.