Perspective: Pearce - March 2005-May 2007

[acton28.blog]

The Pearce days... hmmm.... we lost at Spuds then did okay at Charlton considering we hardly threatened their net... then Liverpool at home when Musampa scored, and things there on that season looked okay. 15/24 points and only 1 defeat since sacking Keegan wasn't a bad innings heading into the last day - and a chance of UEFA Cup spot.

"I sat at home on Saturday night and thought to myself: 'What shall I do if we're drawing the game late on and need to hit it long?'" explained Pearce. "I've got a good striker in Jon Macken, who is really disappointed, but I wanted to unsettle them and in some ways it did. It unsettled everyone . . . them and us."

Classic game, typical City outcome. Schwarzer beat Fowler. On the basis he vastly improved us at the tail end of the season - I thought brill, here we go, a sound call for manager.

52 points

Pearce's problems lay in Keegan's legacy. Anelka had gone before Keegan was fired, McManamamanaman-side-ways-and-backwards-crab-amanaman retired (and rightly so), Macken left in Summer (after choosing David James ahead of him, you can see why - plus he wasn't quite sharp enough... £5m in, £0 out), Bosvelt went without resistance (could he have lasted another season?), and Christian Negouai (£1.5m loss and all out flop), SWP's sale of £21m bolstered our losses somewhat.

On the books we had Danny M-Ills, Robbie Fowler, David James, Sylvain Distin, David Sommeil collecting competitive wages. Thatcher was on big wages, as was Sun Jihai, Sibierski, Reyna considering the modest sums we paid for them.

When you weigh up the clubs in the Prem that season around our finishing position, Everton, Villa, Pompey, WBA and Birmingham, Sunderland, Borough and Charlton. All dropped bar Villa and Everton in that season of the following seasons.

Pearce had £6m Samaras, £2m Vassell, Matt Mills for a bag of potatoes and some has been called Andy Cole for free. Yasser Hussein and Tuomas Haapala were young gambles that did not pay off.

Kiki Musampa occasionally flashed class, Albert Riera looked moderate at best.

If it wasn't for the Mackems, brummies and baggies being so poor that season we'd have been sucked in and dropped.

Goals would have been a big big bonus. 23 for at home is poor at any level, to concede 20 may seem reasonable - but when you lose 8, it hurts. The football was very negative too. The away record being similar.

The 5-2 at Charlton and 4-1 hosting Brum - with the 3-4 loss at Wigan being the only ocassions we scored more than 2 before Derby Day at ours. We only scored 3 goals in one game twice after the derby. Boring, boring City.

Scorer Goals
Andy Cole 10
Darius Vassell 10
Joey Barton 6
Georgios Samaras 5
Robbie Fowler 4
Richard Dunne 3
Trevor Sinclair 3
Antoine Sibierski 2
David Sommeil 2
Lee Croft 1
Danny Mills 1
Kiki Musampa 1
Claudio Reyna 1
Micah Richards 1
Albert Riera 1
Bradley Wright-Phillips 1

43 points.

The next season we won less games, scored less overall (only 10 at home) and managed to survive. We had ground out more draws - seven 0-0's along the way. We only scored 3 goals (Corradi brace and Barton against Fulham at home-wasn't that Barton knighting Bernardo?; 3-1 away at Villa; Fulham away) and 2 goals (WHU - Samaras' brace; an OG assisting at Blackburn; Everton - again Samaras brace; Boro away;). Add to that the 2 FA Cup wins with 3-1 scorelines and the 2-1 replay win over The Owls it was still a yawnfest.

That season we lost fire power from the previous season... Bradley Wright-Phillips, Lee Croft, Willow Flood (all academy so far), make shift forward David James, and Andy Cole departed (profit?), Antoine Sibierski departed to the Toon. In January ever injured Reyna went and Ben Thatcher too.

Pearce again wasn't given much pocket money: Hart (best ever set of brass buttons paid), Dickov (free), Dabo (free), Hamann (free-although Bolton got some compensation); Corradi (figure kept secret but rumoured to be £3m); Trablesi (free); Isaksson (£2m); Ball (£unknown but came with plenty of first aid kits); Mpenza (free, his parent club not renewing his contract). DaMarcus Beasley and Abdoun signed on loan.

Scorer Goals
Joey Barton 7
Georgios Samaras 6
Darius Vassell 5
DaMarcus Beasley 4
Bernardo Corradi 3
Stephen Ireland 3
Emile Mpenza 3
Sylvain Distin 2
Michael Ball 1
Richard Dunne 1
Micah Richards 1
Hatem Trabelsi 1

42 points

Stuart Pearce's overall record at City.
Manchester City 11 March 2005 14 May 2007
Managed 97
Won 34 (35.05%)
Drew 20
Lost 43 (44.32%)

2006/07:
PremierLeague Fourteenth
League Cup Second round
FA Cup Quarter-finals
Season revenue (ranked outside the world's top 20 revenue earning clubs this season)
Average home attendance 39,997 – over 19 PL home games (6th highest in Premier League)

2005/06:
PremierLeague Fifteenth
League Cup Second round
FA Cup Quarter-finals
Season revenue € 89.4 million(17th highest in world)(7th highest in Premier League)
Average home attendance 42,856 – over 19 PL home games (4th highest in Premier League)

2004/05:
PremierLeague Eighth
League Cup Third round
FA Cup Third round
Season revenue € 90.1 million(17th highest in world) (7th highest in Premier League)
Average home attendance 45,192 – over 19 PL home games (3rd highest in Premier League)


LAST FULL SEASON OF KEEGAN ERA: 2003/04
PremierLeague Sixteenth
League Cup Fourth round
FA Cup Fifth round
UEFA Cup Second round
Average home attendance 46,834 – over 19 PL home games (3rd highest in Premier League)

55 GOALS SCORED FOR; 54 AGAINST.
Top goalscorer League: Nicolas Anelka (17 goals)
(5th highest in Premier League)
All comps: Nicolas Anelka (25 goals)
£8m spent at least on players coming in.
Goater, Jensen, Benarbia, Horlock, Huckerby, Mettomo, Berkovic all released for very little.

41 Points.

In a nutshell, my point to this post is without stability Thaksin wouldn't have purchased City and installed Sven (Save our Sven) as manager... leading to the teetering on edge and ADUG buying City.

Whilst Pearce's footy was defensive, negative and simple - he tried his best with a lot less resource than Keegan and with Keegan's legacies, numerous injured players, a new batch of academy players and the worst designed kits (cheers Reebok) ever.

 

[greasedupdeafguy]

Whats with the Pearce threads recently? Did amzing when he first came, had a good half season the next year but after the home defeat against Wigan it went downhill form there. Hes just a poor manager and his buys were god awful.

 

[Hart of the Matter]

Great post. Part of the tapestry that puts us where we are today.

 

[acton28.blog]

Whats with the Pearce threads recently? Did amzing when he first came, had a good a good half season the next year but after the home defeat against Wigan it went downhill form there. Hes just a poor manager and his buys were god awful.

I agree, just think there a fair few feet jumping up too soon and too often. It has been fantastic of late but I'd hate us to forget our roots and be consumed by the "Go Go Robinho!" crowd. Any new fans can learn a thing or two from years of humility and the like.

Nah, you've found me out, I'm crying for days when we couldn't hit the net...

 

[uwerosler28]

what this threads point ? because we were shitter once than we are now we should accept the status quo and not strive to improve further or be dissapointed with a poor result because we once had worse players than those here now ?

 

[DaveH]

He worked with what he had, which wasn't a great deal of good players.
Without Taksin coming in we would of been down and out like Portsmouth. Thats how fine the line is between success and failure.

Remember when we up in arms because Joey Barton put in a transfer request

 

[acton28.blog]

what this threads point ? because we were shitter once than we are now we should accept the status quo and not strive to improve further or be dissapointed with a poor result because we once had worse players than those here now ?

I think we'll always work hard to improve, that's the way the club has always been seen off the pitch, as a groundbreaker, a leader and a torch to the new.

Status quo has nowt to do with it, but remember (and there are signs that it isn't so-not just from the media), other clubs with their fanbase, league and non-league deserve the same respect and support. It was so pleasing to see City partner Hyde FC and assist with their revival (be it just a pitch, sponsorship etc).

Football is great, whether poor like in Pearce's era - and you could see him trying hard, which is always appreciated to now when we have a squad of grafters that look interested and fight with passion to take City forward hand in hand with our history.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

A great manager makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts. A good manager gets the most out of what he's got. Pearce was neither of those.

 

[The Pink Panther]

I thought Pearce did OK with the extremely limited resources he had available, but blowing his whole transfer budget on Sam Harris was an incredible risk, although I still think that he meant to buy Huntelaar and got the two players mixed up

 

[City 1 Chelsea 1 1971]

I just remember the long diagonal ball to Trevor Sinclair's head on the right wing. hoping to win a throw-in near the corner flag.
Plan B was a long diagonal ball to Ishmael Miller's head on the left wing.

Lots of 0-0 draw's on a Monday night in the pouring rain and refusing to criticise the referee, even when he had every justification. Noble when it's another team, but infuriating when you've just been cheated at Doncaster.