He will no doubt long be remembered for his candour, honesty and enthusiasm but also being unable to improve on what had gone immediately before.
Pearce will take his place in the long line of former City bosses not especially close to the top or near to the bottom of the pile.
There are those who will also point to lack of entertainment, negative tactics and dwindling season ticket sales as added reasons for him to be shown the door two years and two months after succeeding Kevin Keegan.
Not being able to better 14th place in the table in his two seasons at the helm was in the end simply not good enough for chairman John Wardle, who pronounced early in the season that he didn't regard staying in the division as a success.
But all Pearce's problems stemmed from the same failure to bring in the right players in the correct positions to move the club forward.
In short. there was a marked absence of young, hungry, athletic stars with an eye for the back of the net.
Endeavour
Eight successive games at Sportcity without a goal or a win, and an entry into the history books as the worst attacking home side in top flight history, finally tipped the balance against a man whose integrity and around-the-clock endeavour on behalf of the Blues was never in doubt.
City fans wanted Pearce to succeed in the job, that is abundantly clear from their early backing, and there are few two and a bit years later who would decry him as a man. It is just a shame the results didn't live up to his reputation or effort.
In all the Blues played 85 Premier League games under his stewardship: They won 28, drew 17 and lost 40. Supporters initially buoyed by Pearce's animated touchline cajoling began turning against the former England and City skipper as early as December last year when Bolton strolled away with the points from Sportcity in a 2-0 win - third abject defeat on the trot.
Although there was a revival over the Christmas and New Year holiday, discontent with a side lacking flair grew to a crescendo again in March when Wigan completed the double over the struggling Blues who then bowed out of the FA Cup in pathetic fashion at Blackburn.
Pearce's decision to take the England Under-21 coaching job, albeit on a part time basis, went down badly both within the boardroom and on the terraces.
And with season ticket renewals then plummeting because of the lack of quality on view, and no discernable improvement in terms of points and league position from his first season in charge to his second, the board felt the time was right for a change.
Rookie
Only time will tell if they were premature to eject Pearce who is still to all intents and purposes a rookie manager, but perhaps the biggest lesson learned by all concerned is that the Premiership is no place to learn your trade either for a manager or a player.
Pearce's downfall will forever be associated with his spending of a combined £7m on the unfortunate Georgios Samaras, the young Greek international who has clearly not lived up to expectations and 30-year-old former Italian international Bernardo Corradi.
They were bought to get the goals that would fire the Blues into the Uefa Cup chase but in the event managed seven in the league between them this season in a combined 35 starts and 25 substitute appearances.
Pearce's other summer signings Ousmane Dabo, Didi Hamann, Hatem Trabelsi and DaMarcus Beasley were all only bit part rather than major players in a campaign of under-achievement.
While keeper Andreas Isaksson did well, youngsters such as Djamel Abdoun and Matt Mills also failed to make progress, leaving the manager to rely on established stars such as Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin and the emergence of more home grown talent from the Academy.
His failure to land attacking reinforcements in the January transfer window was another near fatal blow to his regime - though the money to spend could have arrived earlier - and when skipper Richard Dunne felt compelled to speak out criticising fellow members of the squad and then Joey Barton followed suit with a thinly veiled verbal attack on the manager, the alarm bells began to ring even more loudly in the boardroom.
Supporter
A run of six games without a win to end the season only made the decision even simpler for Wardle who had been Pearce's strongest supporter in the corridors of power having appointed him to succeed the Keegan.
In his defence, Pearce will point to a lack of transfer funds that were all spent by his predecessor.
He would be justified in saying that his spending was severely limited and way below that shelled out over two years by the likes of Newcastle, Villa and Middlesbrough who all finished in mid table with City. His undoing was that the money he did have to spend was not spent well or wisely and that for the same price as he paid for Samaras he could have picked up players with proven Premiership goal scoring quality or two or three from the English lower league who might have fared better.
In any case, you only have to look at what Reading achieved with Leroy Lita and Kevin Doyle as their spearhead to know that there are bargains out there if you know where to find them.
A perhaps over cautious and conservative Pearce wasn't helped by a scouting system, again inherited, that failed to identify early enough players who would benefit the Blues.
In the end he was forced into a 4-5-1 system at home because that is what clearly best suited the men at his disposal. The fact is that he was responsible for the make up of that squad was the killer fact.
He will point to the success of Michael Ball and Emile Mpenza as signs that his judgement of players had improved with experience in the hot seat but it was too late.
Pearce could quite legitimately shout from the roof tops that under his management the Blues made a handsome transfer profit with Shaun Wright-Phillips, Willo Flood, Lee Croft, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Ben Thatcher sold for a combined £24m - considerably more than he was given to replace them.
England's Under-21 side will be the initial beneficiaries from Pearce's departure from the domestic scene and he may well be offered that job on a full time basis.
Whether he accepts it or not will depend on his drive to succeed as a club boss and prove that he has learned well from his two years at City.
He will point to David Moyes, Sam Allardyce and Alex Ferguson as three great examples of managers who had seasons as bad or worse that those he has presided over yet survived to build teams that have tasted success. He will no doubt use that as motivation.
Only time will tell whether Pearce will go on to be a great manager. City fans will move on to yet another thinking as they have done most of the season - Pearce, great guy, brilliant commitment, commendable honesty but not quite yet the full management package!
What do you think? Have your say.
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So SP failed to bring in enough young, hungry players. Wasn't it the board's stated policy to pay higher wages to experienced players?
A pretty accurate summary but this could have been added to by his disastrous lack of tactical awareness outside the defensive area and his lamentable decisions to continually play men in the wrong decision. Now let's take time and get a manager with know-how in. Any please not even the merest suggestion of Souness or the tedious Sven.
Some fair criticisms from Mr Bailey. However it smacks of playing to the gallery a bit. If the wheels were starting to come off after the December defeat to Bolton why was he not more vocal before the today?
His record speaks for itself. 28 wins out of 85, simply woeful. I can't believe people are now posting on here saying we shouldn' have got rid. Someone please tell me a positive that Pearce brought to the club. The next appointment has to be right to take this club where we want to be. Van gaal, Koeman, Ranieri have all been mentioned, but I simply can't see any of them coming. We'll appoint someone like Jewell,Reid,Warnock etc. The cheap option as it always has been. Please prove me wrong city, go on just this once.
Really weak journalism in my opinion. Didn't hear much criticism from the MEN when pearce was still around. Seems a bit cowardly to finally start agreeing with the fans once the bloke is out of the door.
I don't think there can be any possible doubt that he had to go but do I worry about the future given our track record in making poor appointments at the wrong time. The concern is that this take over is going to drag on & again all the cherries will have been picked by the time we are in a position to go shopping and in the meantime we are more than likely to lose a number of key players. Furthermore, I for one don't relish the prospect of Shinawatra being in charge of my club. As a shareholder I have yet to receive notification of the proposed investment or a future EGM in which our shareholders are able to convey our concerns to. Lets hope and pray things turn out well, but isn't that just the point? We are seemingly always in hope rather than expectation!
Julio, good points well made, but if the paper stuck the boot in while the manager was here, they'd get even less access than they do now. I recall similar comments when Keegan left as well.
Have Wigley and co been axed yet???? God help us if Wiggles is put in charge!!
Well at last,Our reporter comes out from the behind the garbage he has printed for the last 6 months,now Pearce has gone, out comes the base-ball bat to attack the manager,gutless to do it whilst Pearce was still in charge.Now the MUEN talks of a "disastrous transfer policy","lack of entertainment","negative tactics","dwindling season ticket sales"."failure in the transfer window"."premiership no place to serve an apprnticeship".The fans have been on about this all season.
It's very easy to call him now that he's gone, Mr Bailey!
"top guy, top man, but not good enough for city...
I do believe these views should have been posted earlier. They are pretty spot on though I would place Pearce in the bottom ranks of the managers we've had as he has virtually achieved nothing and has lost almost half of his games in charge. Also I wonder what will happen to the back room staff. Surely a new assistant manager is needed and a vastly improved scouting network. For all his faults SP is not solely to blame for the failures in the transfer market - our poor scouting network was to.
This talk of a foreign manager is nonsense. Lets have some actual analysis of where we are as a club. We are a bottom 6 club with a large fan base but very poor side. All the money in the world (and everyone has more money to spend this summer) will not attract players at this time as we are not in Europe!!! Not the CL not even the UEFA. Foreign coaches succeed where they take over clubs with a sound playing base, Wenger, Mourinho, etc. Look at an outstanding foreign coach who took over a poor side, Le Guen at Rangers. The result was a disaster. Do you think these suggested names can list 3 City players amongst them? No. The time for a foreign coach is when we are nearer the top, perhaps with some european experience. If it has to be now then I'm afraid it has to be someone with experience of english football, and then there are three not very attractive coaches. No foreign coach without excellent english players can adjust quickly to the frantic pace and nature of English football. What we need is an experienced british coach/manager and there is only one obvious candidate. He played for numerous clubs at home, played for Barcelona and on loan at Bayern. He has an excellent record of buying unknown players and improving them, Bentley, Pederson, darbyshire and Neilson to name but four. His teams play with pace, commitment and balance. He has guided his club to several semi finals and a european place. You've guessed it, Mark Hughes.
Terrible manager, but he was
forced to function without
much backing from Wardle and
the Board. He kept us up,
which got us the Sky money
and made a positive takeover
possible, so I am grateful
to him for that. Good luck
and good riddance.
It seems to me, however, that
there is another leading
figure at COMS that should
be made to pay the price of
failure as well: yes, the
Blue-Nosed one! Wrong about
this season's prospects, wrong about Pearce, wrong
about Wardle and the Board,
and finally, WRONG about us
fans (especially whingers).
As a sentence, I suggest that
Blue Nose have his nose
painted RED and be required
to donate his time during
home matches next season
ferrying green curry pies
from the concessionaire to
the fans. And let's make
him wear a RAGS kit while
doing it!
Phil, oh how easy it is to snipe and make offensive remarks (but you're not alone in that) from such a distance. I hope you've noted that I haven't sank to your level.
5 live reporting that it's Ranieri - how do we feel about that?
The MUEN asks "who would you like as city,s next boss " then provides a list of their own to pick from !none of these are my choice , so that means i dont get a vote, But just to get it in my choice is Mr Wenger, thats my choice, does;nt mean he would consider it !! But there you go..
J Lanigan, Mark Hughes would indeed be an excellent choice. His CV is impressive, including his stint as Wales manager. Unfortunately, with the season ticket renewal situation, I think his time at United would frighten the board off.
Caped Crusader, SP spent most of the money available on a young, untried player. Bought a young keeper, Hart. He also tried for Sidwell, and should have bid higher, made a bid for Lee Cook from QPR and looked at Lita but decided against him. So young players weren't out of the question.
Blue Nose: YOU sank to the
lowest depths with your
season-long jibes about the
whingers who really hate
MCFC, etc. Pure McCarthyism
at its best. You remind me
of Bush and Cheney in that
regard. Instead of admitting
you were wrong, as a real
human being would, you are
now simply silent or quietly
grumping about the takeover.
The numbers 42 and 10 say all
there is to say, eh? Is
that it? Or is your grumpiness due to the
impending loss of your job as
a paid SHILL for Wardle & Co.?
Phil, as you've clearly not read my first post on this thread, here it is again. Oh how easy it is to snipe and make offensive remarks (but you're not alone in that) from such a distance. I hope you've noted that I (still) haven't sank to your level.
Penatrative,revealing journalism from Mr.Bailey.Only about four months to late.
Don't forget the press and media speculated on the england management position, emphasising that pearce was a very likely candidate. setting up unease at city on two occasions, which i think for a new manager to handle is out of order, that had a detrimental effect on SP's reign and the rest of city. typical of how the media work they like to create a downfall to sell there so called products.
nearly as damming as bbc mark Lawrence's mouth. city support wake up and smell the air, i certainly wont forget.
Blue Nose: what a snivelling
little coward you are!