Stuart Pearce is a rank failure

Man City lost 1-0 away at Reading tonight. No great shakes. These things happen in professional sport. And though there will probably be some young Mancunian who travelled all the way to the arse-end of the M4 only to see his team lose, allow it to affect his psychological make up and probably join a gang by the time he's 12, really the consequences will not be all that great.

But

I do think that this will be the beginning of the end of Stuart Pearce's first job as a football manager. Again, no great shakes for the club and he'll probably get another job (though in all likelihood it won't be as good as working at a MASSIVE CLUB like City). But his sacking will bring to an end a shortlived fancy of mine which went along the lines of: Pearce was the first punk rock loving, Psycho-nicknamed, blood and thunder fullback to, actually, turn out to be a wise and clever man; that his often affable behaviour was the sign of an inner profundity rather than just the mode that he fell into when not switched on 'argy'; and that, indeed, being something other than just a bland clone of all your fellow pros and rejecting their communal love for Phil Collins (then) or Usher (now) would actually stand you in some advantage in the ball game we call foot.

On another matter, this