Nigel Pearson Probably Won’t be Getting the Newcastle Job

By: Daryl | January 12th, 2008

Nigel Pearson caretaker We were all curious to see how Newcastle United would react to Sam Allardyce’s recent sacking (by mutual consent, of course) and to see how the Toon Army would perform once the shadow of long ball-loving Big Sam was removed and caretaker Nigel Pearson was installed. The answer turns out to be: badly. Very badly. Pearson and Newcastle went to Old Trafford to take on Manchester United, and left with sore bottoms after a 6-0 spanking.

Cristiano Ronaldo helped himself to a hat-trick, Carlos Tevez had cause to suck his goal-scoring dummy (is that sanitary? I’m not convinced) twice and even Rio Ferdinand found time to go up the other end and score a nice volleyed goal.

The weirdest thing is that Newcastle held out for the first 45 minutes, with the score 0-0 at half time. But that only makes their second half performance all the more horrific. Six goals in the second 45 averages out to one goal every seven and a half minutes. Oh dear.

They even indulged the viewing public with some trademark comedy defending, starring Caçapa. The Brazilian played a horrible square ball in his own box to Spanish left back Jose Enrique, who had no choice but to play it back to his goalkeeper. Poor Shay Given (who had an impressive first half) then had no choice but to clear the ball in a hurry, except instead of finding the halfway line his kick found Caçapa’s upper thigh and bounced back into danger, with Carlos Tevez slotting home his first goal in the resulting confusion.

[comedy defending spotted on 101 Great Goals]

So not a good start for Nigel Pearson, and his chances of landing the Newcastle job full time dropped from from 1% to -100%. In a way it’s good news for whoever the next Necastle manager is (not Harry Redknapp) as they can say “Look at what I have to work with! I’m going to need a big transfer budget.”

I wonder how Sam Allardyce felt after seeing his team take a beating (if he watched it at all.) He’ll either feel vindicated that at least the way he had Newcastle playing (defensively) they wouldn’t have taken such a beating, or maybe depressed at this fresh evidence that he’s transformed Newcastle United from a mediocre team into a plain bad team with signings like… you guessed it… Caçapa.