Nigel Pearson retains the unwavering belief that he can navigate Watford away from trouble and mastermind another act of escapology.
The Head Coach oversaw remarkable survival bids at Carlisle, Leicester City, Southampton and, as Bryan Robson’s assistant, at West Bromwich Albion and he is plotting another one at Vicarage Road.
“I believe we can do it,” he told Premier League Productions. “I honestly think that. We’ve got a very good, realistic chance. We’ve got to be able to find a way of functioning as close to maximum as we can even when not at our maximum. It’s a difficult thing to do but that’s what we are trying to do.”
The biggest rescue act came at Leicester in 2014/15. The Foxes had 19 points after 31 games and spent four-and-a-half months anchored to the foot of the table between November and April, but they then hit a purple patch, winning seven and drawing one of their last nine games to finish 14th, six points clear of trouble.
“You don’t want to get yourself into a situation where you’ve got to do that,” said Pearson. “It’s very dangerous to do that. What we mustn’t do is think that we’ve done that there [at Leicester] and so it will work here. It doesn’t work like that.
“I’m different, he [Craig Shakespeare] is different, the players are different, the circumstances are different. Our biggest job is to free them [the players] up so they can still go out and enjoy playing football, which is a very difficult thing to do and a very easy thing to say.”
Given the Hornets were nine points from safety going into the home game with Manchester United in December, Pearson believes finishing 17th or above this season would represent his biggest managerial achievement.
“Let’s hope we are having this conversation at the end of the season, but it would have to be, of course,” he said. “Because we are still in a very, very tough situation. From the situation we’ve been in, it’s going to take a real monumental effort by everybody but there is a long way to go.
“I don’t want to look too far ahead. We are going to have to deal with a lot of negative and positive stuff here on in to give ourselves the best chance, so we've got to show an awful lot of resilience.”
