How Appointing Pearson Changes Hull’s Fortunes

No longer a fox, but now a tiger…

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog regard­ing the six new teams that would be play­ing in the Cham­pi­onship next sea­son via rel­e­ga­tion and pro­mo­tion. One of these teams is Hull City, a side that has had an adven­tur­ous past decade or so. My belief was that Hull wouldn’t be pro­moted straight back to the Pre­mier­ship next sea­son and I based this pre­dic­tion on the heavy amount of debt they had accu­mu­lated when play­ing in the Pre­mier League and their eager­ness to move a lot of high earn­ing play­ers on. But two days ago, Hull man­aged to hire one of the top man­agers in the coun­try today and all of a sud­den, Hull really do have a good chance of show­ing bounce­back­a­bil­lity and this appoint­ment shows their ambi­tion to estab­lish them­selves as a big hit­ter in England.

The man they have appointed of course is Nigel Pear­son, who lead Leices­ter City to pro­mo­tion from league one and a sur­pris­ing play-off place last sea­son in the Cham­pi­onship (in a sense of you don’t usu­ally see pro­moted League One sides have that good a first sea­son). The Foxes may be curs­ing their luck, as due to the fact Pear­son has never had a chance to chal­lenge in the top flight (despite two very brief stint as New­cas­tle United care­taker man­ager) he remains one of England’s best kept secrets and is a man­ager I’ve often thought is des­tined for great­ness. Pear­son him­self (and I’m sure many Leices­ter fans) was sur­prised that he was given the chance to join Hull, as Milan Man­daric can often be stub­born and out­spo­ken in his approach of issues. He is no stranger to tight bud­gets, and his record with pre­vi­ous clubs sug­gests that his main strength is cre­at­ing unity in a club and he has a unique abil­ity to instill con­fi­dence in any player.

The fact is, any­one who is famil­iar with Pear­son will have a fond­ness towards him. He was appointed man­ager of a strug­gling Southamp­ton side more than half way through the sea­son on a rolling con­tract and man­aged to keep them in the Cham­pi­onship despite the many prob­lems the club faced. Southamp­ton con­ducted a poll ask­ing the fans who they thought should be man­ager of the club for the next sea­son, and more than 90% of the vote went to Pear­son. Instead, Southamp­ton appointed a Dutch man­ager no one had heard of and they were rel­e­gated next sea­son. He then helped Leices­ter return to the Cham­pi­onship at the first time of ask­ing and even man­aged to win League One with the side. Then came a dream first sea­son back in the Cham­pi­onship, but Cardiff City ended their play off hopes on penalties.

What makes Pear­son the per­fect man for the job is that he is in a sit­u­a­tion that he is all too famil­iar with. He’s man­aged Carlisle, Southamp­ton and Leices­ter and what all these clubs had in com­mon was that when he took charge, there was a sense of trou­ble in the squad and low morale. Carlisle and Southamp­ton were fight­ing a rel­e­ga­tion bat­tle and Leices­ter had just been rel­e­gated, and Pear­son man­aged to do the best job he could at each one of these clubs. When I look at Hull at the moment, I see quite a few play­ers that are prob­a­bly want­ing out of the club, foot­ballers who went there for the money — mer­ce­nar­ies. Pear­son won’t have a mas­sive trans­fer bud­get and he won’t be sign­ing Pre­mier­ship qual­ity play­ers, but instead he will be able to bring in the right play­ers for the job, and can give Hull a real chance of going back to the Pre­mier League. In truth, it’s one of those sit­u­a­tions where there is no bet­ter man for the job.

It is a mas­sive blow for Leices­ter and I was won­der­ing how Pear­son would man­age in his sec­ond sea­son with the Foxes, but they are now resigned to look­ing for a new man­ager to lead the club in the Cham­pi­onship. Paulo Sousa appears to be the over­whelm­ing favourite and I believe that it would be a good appoint­ment for the club, although whether he will want to leave Swansea where he is liked and estab­lished is another thing. The best for for Leices­ter is that they don’t have to rush the appoint­ment and can take their time, they are a well organ­ised team with fan­tas­tic sup­port and are an impor­tant part in Eng­lish foot­ball his­tory. I’ve always had a soft spot for them!

As for Hull, I’m not going to exactly flip flop and say that now they will get pro­moted thanks to the appoint­ment of Pear­son, but I believe it is a very wise choice and in truth, pro­mo­tion is now a pos­si­bil­ity for the Tigers. This is a big sea­son for the York­shire out­fit and they could really do with pro­mo­tion in order to ease their finan­cial woes somewhat.

Tagged as: Championship, hull city, leicester, Leicester City, Nigel Pearson