Everything Owls legend Nigel Pearson said just last year about taking the Sheffield Wednesday job

As the news dropped that Sheffield Wednesday had sacked Garry Monk last night, eyes scoured the room for potential replacements and found former Owls captain Nigel Pearson out of a job and off the back of a flurry of high-profile national media engagements, usually an indication that a manager might be looking for work.

Pearson played over 200 times for the club as is regarded as one of Wednesday’s ultimate icons, leading the club to Rumbelows Cup glory and promotion in 1991.

An open-and-shut, then? Not quite. Nottingham-born Pearson has said on a handful of occasions previously that he has no interest in managing in the city he and his family call home.

“You never say never but I like living in Sheffield," Pearson told The Star in May last year.

“I have been quoted as saying I have an emotional attachment (to the club) but what I don't want is emotional baggage to do a job.

“Football management is about making tough decisions. As a football manager, you want to make fans happy by being successful but you can't keep everybody happy all the time because you have to sometimes make decisions that are unpopular or not always understandable.

“Sheffield has been such a big part of my life and family's life that I don't really want to put that at risk for a job.”

Speculation has risen that the time may have come for Pearson, a former Leicester City and Watford boss, to take on what looks from a purely footballing standpoint to be a perfect fit.

And the 57-year-old went as far as to suggest it was a case of ‘never say never’.

He said: “Football management in the modern day is not what it used to be. It is more intrusive.

“There is more to my life than work and that is the angle I'm coming from.

“So this is not me saying I don't want to do it and I am never going to do it. I might never have the opportunity.

“I have never turned it down before because I have never been given the opportunity. We are talking hypothetically.

“I like living here and I am not particularly prepared to put important parts of my life at risk for a job."

MORE FROM OUR WEDNESDAY WRITING TEAM

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LISTEN: Our Sheffield Wednesday writers reflect on Garry Monk's sacking, his tenure and what the Owls could Cook up next

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