Given the choice between his boyhood club and his current employer, there was only one way Gary Lineker was going to go.
Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson faced the press today in a bid to defuse the growing speculation about his future.
Reports on Sunday evening suggested Pearson had been sacked by the Foxes following his extraordinary grabbing of Crystal Palace midfielder James McArthur’s throat on Saturday, but a subsequent club statement insisted he still held the job.
Pearson today told reporters he expected to remain in charge until the end of the season and blamed Match of the Day pundits for making more out of the incident than was necessary.
‘It’s not helpful when the three fountains of knowledge on Match of the Day make a mountain out of a molehill, Pearson said.
That provoked an almost immediate response from the BBC programme’s host Lineker:
Ah Nigel Pearson is blaming MOTD for making a mountain out of a molehill. We'd best be careful in future, the fella can look after himself.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) February 9, 2015
Lineker, a boyhood Leicester fan who began his career at the club, also fuelled rumours that Pearson had been informed of his removal yesterday before being reinstated later in the evening, adding:
.@PaulMcCarthy66 if I was I'd tell you that he was sacked by one of the owners' family and reinstated by another, but then I'm not.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) February 9, 2015
