Stuart Pearce has been sacked as Manchester City manager. Sighs of relief all round.

BBC journalist Chris Bevan, himself a City fan, has written an excellent article on Pearce's sacking here:

As a Blue I can speak from first-hand experience about how painful it has been to watch City this season.

Defensively we have been sound but there has been no creativity in our midfield and zero cutting edge up front. I am used to being frustrated watching City but it has rarely been as bad as this.

Even when we did score goals and win games it was through a war of attrition and that seems to be the only way Pearce knows.

Apparently Gerard Houllier, ex-Liverpool, is interested, and it can't escape notice that Paul Jewell has resigned as Wigan manager today. I'm not sure either of them inspire me but I'll lay off the speculation. Bevan wants Derby's Billy Davies in, which is the equivalent of Everton appointing David Moyes a while back, and that's done them no harm.

I remember meeting Stuart Pearce 18 months ago, when he was fairly new to the job - you can read about it on Dayorama here, and listen to my full interview with him.

Back then the atmosphere at the club was very positive. Pearce was still being hailed as the club's saviour after a brilliant run once Keegan had gone, and on a bitterly cold morning at the club's Carrington training complex, he was all fun and games.

I had gone to interview him for my broadcasting postgrad and had sat nervously at the back of the entire press conference, not saying a word. Once that had finished, Pearce stood up and - in front of the assembled journalists - pointed his finger at me.

"Oi!" He said. "You! I hear you've got some questions for me."

What do you say when Stuart Pearce says that to you? I can't even remember what I said but it wasn't very impressive. We went off to a tiny media booth at the back of the room and Pearce rested himself up against a table. There was a cream handbag next to it. I saw my chance to level the score.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

What was I doing? I'd just implied to the man dubbed Psycho, face to face, that he carried a handbag.

"Nope. Mine's the black one," replied Pearce.

In the ensuing eight minute interview he was nothing but honest, thoughtful, and frankly interesting. So many football manager will spout on til kingdom come without really saying much, but even when Pearce didn't say something, it meant something.

I remember asking him how he felt about missing out on a World Cup medal as a player. He'd been honoured by the Queen - would he swap that for England honours?

Pearce replies: "I don't know," with incredibly thoughtful intonation, and then he thanks the Queen. There's just enough pause in his reply for it to be clear that even Stuart doesn't completely know the answer.

Perhaps what sticks out now, in retrospect, is the way Pearce talks about football management. Back when the interview happened there was absolutely no danger of him losing his job, so he was looking at things from a very healthy point of view. But even then he knew it was never likely to last:

"Football management's very tough, no matter whether results are going well or not so well. You have to have a long-term goal and also win your short-term battles.

"I'll never enjoy management as much as I enjoy playing. I miss the camaraderie between the team - management gives you a second place to that but make no mistake, when your team win and you've put your little bit in... you can never be one of those players again."