Beggars belief that you can criticize his man management skills. SSL after his issues with Pearson has come back and become one of our best players over recent games. Beckford after man management by Pearson is suddenly scoring an working hard! Wellens is back to his best after man managed by pearson! Maybe mills has to big a ego and if that's the case then it's the correct decision as we now have good team spirit, don't want one player to ruin that!! The fact he is captain makes it even worse!!
In Nigel (most of ) us trust

See my numerous posts under the Mills article.

I personally think Pearson has all the makings of a top man manager. Getting players playing above their ability, creating a team ethic and getting players to work hard for him. His management of Beckford and SSL just go to show this.

The top managers in the world don't tolerate petulant players. Ferguson has has numerous fall outs with Rooney, shipped out RvN and Stam due to fall outs - is he a ba man manager?

MON has had some big fall outs with players (Reo Coker anyone) but would anyone dare question whether he's a top manager?

I have no problem with Pearson moving out players willing to challenge his authority, especially when we had plenty of talent in that area.

I'll only be worried when the team on the pitch looks disinterested and demotivated. I'm seeing the opposite currently and that suits me just fine.

Looks like we agree once again Mersey

If any one on here wants to criticise Pearson or defend him then that is fine, that is what this forum is all about- Opinions, get over yourself!

Bit harsh timber? Not quite sure to what you are referring to, but if, as I totally agree, this forum is about opinions, are we not allowed to have ours?

comment by Trish210586 (U8071)
posted 35 minutes ago

Beggars belief that you can criticize his man management skills.

Was referring to this.

At the end of the day we have 5 quality centre backs which sadly means 3 will have to miss out. As footballers seem to be diva's these days I guess we should be used to a mardy or two but there you go. Mills should accept that quite frankly he's been Pants, the team is more important and that if he deserves to be first choice then he gets his head down and grafts.

Trish is right, NP knows what's right and whose right, clearly some players don't! UTF

no one can say i have been a massive pearson fan.but he has gone up in my estimation in recent times, you cannot have players thinking they are bigger than the club and questioning the managers decisions, re: tevez, this is long overdue IMO,if players are given free reign you will end up with anarchy..we might just see what mills is made of...either he will want to prove pearson wrong or just stropp off and never be seen again..its up to the 25 grand a week man..

Nigel Pearson has made the right decision

Mills when on form is the best centre half in the division, but he has a massive ego and burnt his bridges with our fans when he stuck the middle finger in our direction after one of his wayward crossfield balls and it looks like he's burnt his bridges here. He thinks he should be in the Premier League, but he isn't there for a reason and that's because he only plays well for 40% of the time. If you have quality replacement like you have then he is a problem that you don't need.

No conciendence that we are more solid at the back this season with Mr reliable Gorkss who was a quarter of the price.

Mills can be a great player but he needs a reality check, one which he seems so hellbent on not taking.

Well done Nigel !

Good strong Management !

Which is needed when players earn so much.
I believe his Man Management has been good in getting the best out of the majority of the team, with some notable successes.

Pearson may or may not be right about Mills. I suspect that he is. But I don't recognise the picture some people are painting of him having handled St Ledger brilliantly.

According to Ipswich, they had agreed a price for SSL in early January and discussed terms with him, but then we realised how thin our cover would be while Bamba was in Africa, and delayed the sale pending the Cup replay. And then after the Forest game, we decided not to sell him after all.

To me, this does not read at all like a 'firm hand works wonders and brings player to his senses' master stroke. More like a 'unplanned use of neglected player brings manager to his senses' panic stroke.

I have a lot of time for Pearson. But I'm sometimes slightly baffled by the widespread insistence that everything he does is part of a cunning plan, and none of it a cockup.

I have not once said Timber that my opinion is always right and no one else is allowed one, I just find it amazing that his judgment is called into question every time e makes a decision but yet 9 out 10 times he is spot on!!

I'll be quite open about the fact that I am a Pearson fan. I think he has all the right attributes to make a great manager.

Fatfox, however, is right. Every manager has human frailties and makes mistakes every now and again and has situations they could have handled better. We all remember the brilliant signings that managers like Ferguson and O'Neill have made, but tend to forget the few that they got wrong.

Pearson is clearly a strong character and pretty thick skinned. I've not yet seen a successful football manager who hasn't got these qualities (or attributes if you prefer). Sven was a nice guy, but was very single minded and didn't mind upsetting players or shifting them on.

I'm not privy to inside knowledge of what's gone on between Pearson and Mills so I can simply judge the situation on what I see on the pitch. I've stated before that Mills looks like he's got a bit of Steve Walsh about him and great potential. I've not, however, always seen that potential out on the pitch and certainly not the quality you'd expect for £3m+.

The way we have arguments on this forum about who is our best CB makes it's evident to me that there is not all that much between them. It's, therefore, quite right that Pearson should look for his best combination and Mills has certainly not been so good to make himself undroppable. Konchesky at LB, for example, has been far more consistent, but has found himself benched in favour of Tom Kennedy a couple of times this season.

Mills should work hard to get back in the team and then work hard to stay in it. Schmeichel and (maybe) Nugent are in a position where Nigel should perhaps be massaging their egos a little to keep them happy, but I'm afraid that Mills hasn't yet earned that luxury.

tail wagging the dog, not likely don't care who they are.
Off with him!

I went to Derby on Thursday, and anyone there would of seen how good Morgan was. Mills not in the same league. Pearson knows what he is doing........

Its all about opinions on here and thats the fun.
I think NP is a good manager but a bully who wants his control things like the media which he has no right too!

With Mills if he does not want him end of .But to say is God like in his man management is laughable.

He got lucky with SSL and loaning Mills to leeds will help them more than us unless its foe a month to get some games without the home fans on his back.

Sven was one win from keeping his job Managers survive and fall by results and if NP cant get the some consistancy in his results he will follow Sven out the door by the end of this season IMO.

I must admit to be being slightly surprised by the unflinching support for NP.

I am not against disciplining players who step out of line - far from it. My criticism was based on this pattern of wanting to get rid of every player that doesn't always agree with him.

This aggressive approach comes out in his dealings with the media - at first amusing, now down-right embarrasing!

Perhaps I will be proved wrong and he will put together a team of "like-me's" prepared to run through brick walls for him.

The real proof will be our League position in about twelve month's time.

lcfcprawnsandwich & Nev- you've hit the nail on the head with your last posts. We can all have our opinions on whether we think Pearson has or hasn't managed a situation well, but ultimately he'll be judged on results.

I hope he's given at least the whole of next season to see whether he can deliver or not.

Hi Mersey.

Strangely, I am not calling for anyone's head - far from it.

I am pleased that he has finally "put his arm around" St Ledger's shoulder and seems to be getting more commitment from Beckford.

But he is as guilty as some of his players of "toys out of the pram". As a manager, you have to be bigger than that.

Whether he is right or wrong about Mills is not my contention. I am not convinced he manages personalities well.

But as we all agree, the proof of the pudding will be in his performance next year.

prawnsandwich - You may be right, and in a sense it is concerning that this is not the first player in the squad who has had a 'bust up' with the manager. Also, I do think that Pearson has had a time when he threw the toys out of the pram himself - it resulted in him going to Hull, a decision that he can't have been that glad of in retrospect given that he's returned. It's probably for that reason that people like John Gee are suspicious of him now (John keeps mentioning loyalty, probably for that reason) and in a way it's hard to argue against that.

That said, this situation is a bit different and goes back to his (sometimes misinterpreted) "delusions of grandeur" comment. Whatever we think of it, the way some of the players have acted has backed up this idea - the recent reports on Mills being the latest that fit this pattern. John suggests that Pearson's been trying to force Mills out - I don't see it myself for several reasons - but I wonder if he's brought Wes Morgan in partly to see how the other players would react. As it happens, St. Ledger has reacted positively, Mills negatively and we'll have to see about Bamba (it sounds like he tried hard at right back even though he made mistakes and if so that should be viewed as a positive thing).

If there were people around the club who were too big for their boots and not even playing well, his abilities to go around massaging their egos was severely limited. Instead, he may have needed to try to prompt them into action, to see whether they would play for the club or not. At a guess, maybe he tried to back Mills up initially, to put an arm around him, and perhaps he didn't respond to it. Or maybe he found Mills to be as cold and unresponsive as I've always found him in interviews and just couldn't work with him. Either way, the relationship between these two individuals has broken down and the rest of the team hardly seem to be up in arms about the result of this.

While it is possible that Pearson has handled the situations with Mills and St. Ledger badly, it may also be that these things were likely to bubble over anyway at some point and Pearson has tried to act in the best interests of the team as a whole - and yes, that is his team, and a weak manager will never do any good. This is the conlusion I draw based on what information I've seen and heard anyway.

Well put Dunge.

Brilliant article, thought provoking comments, a credit to all contributing Foxes supporters. Enjoyed the input here and has made me think a bit and hopefully others too. Thank you all

I think Pearson was well within his rights to drop Matt Mills and if he's reacted in a manner that means Pearson has felt the need to ship him off to a potential play-off rival then it must have been something serious.

It's not Pearson's fault that Mills cannot take being dropped. I would also like to point out that this isn't the first time Mills has reacted like this - he also did at Reading under Brendan Rpdgers apparently.

As for Pearson, if we were going to list his qualities, then man management would be top or near the top of that list. He gets players that are willing to buy into his ethos playing for him and to the best of their abilities and generates great team spirit and that is a great quality in a manager. Reminiscent of a certain Northen Irishman who used to manage us. I think a better advert for these qualities would be Beckford rather than SSL.

I really rate NP as a manager and I do think he's destined for good things. I can't recall a bad job he's done anywhere and his fellow professionals speak highly of him too. I think, given a summer to properly get his squad in shape, he is capable of getting us promoted - especially with a talent spotter like Steve Walsh on board and the resources to buy this talent.

I just hope our owners feel the same.

Letting Pearson go 2 years ago was a huge mistake in hindsight - everyone was on the roller coaster of the Eriksson bandwagon, me icluded, but I firmly believe Pearson has the qualities to get us out of this division. He makes good signings, gets players playing for the team, instills a good work ethic which makes his teams difficult to beat.

On the Mills front, I thought this would have been an excellent signing, but for whatever reason Mills has rarely performed to expectations this season. He has cost us points and missed 7 games through ill discipline and his temper now appears to have put his career at Leicester in jeopardy. I think Mills has the potential to be an outstanding defender, but no one player is bigger than the club and I'm affraid Mills needs to accept others are playing better than him at present. He needs to take a leaf out of SSL's book, buckle down, work hard and if he gets another chance, take it. Alas, I don't think he has the maturity to accept that he might be wrong and therefore he is unlikely to play for us again whilst Pearson is manager.

"It's probably for that reason that people like John Gee are suspicious of him now…"

John Gee was opposed to Pearson being appointed the first time around – when the job was to get us out of L1. That can't possibly be explained by reference to the later excursion to Hull.