Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson says that he sympathises with the plight of Newcastle boss Alan Pardew ahead of a meeting between the two teams at St James’s Park during the weekend. Newcastle are still waiting for their first win of the season. Since the season is about to enter into the eighth matchday, this poor run of form has left the club in the relegation zone. Even though they have found scoring goals a little easier in the last few matches, holding on to a lead has been a major problem for the club.
The reintroduction of Cisse back into the team has been a major reason behind the good form in front of goal. Pardew will have used the international break in order to work on the defensive side of things. Nigel Pearson is no stranger to getting sacked as a manager. Hence, he says that the situation faced by Pardew, with the Newcastle supporters be heavily against him, is a difficult one for any boss. It was only a few years ago that Pardew was highly praised for getting the club into the fifth place despite being on a limited budget. Pearson returns to the club where he was the manager for a period of 16 months from 2006.
“I’ve still a lot of very good memories from my time there, although being caretaker was not a good experience because I was replacing someone I had worked with. The initial appointment came out of the blue. I had just left West Brom as Bryan Robson had gone and I did not expect to be in work so quickly. But it was a great experience for me. It’s a big club and there were a lot of good things about it. It’s the nature of football that sometimes the expectation can be used as the opportunity to make changes,” said Pearson.