Watford are unbeaten in five and resurgent under new coach Nigel Pearson

Pragmatic Pearson paused his history degree when he took over on December 6

Players and staff who worked with Pearson at Leicester have revealed his ethos

The experienced manager has pulled off four previous survival missions

Many people will have their own image of Nigel Pearson's management style and it is likely to resemble what they see — the sergeant major's haircut, the cold stare, frosty answers and the handshake that cracks walnuts as well as knuckles.

Troy Deeney's recent comments about Watford's new manager, the man who has lifted them from the bottom of the Premier League and instilled real hope of survival, play up to that stereotype. 'If you don't buy into what the gaffer wants, you won't be here. For the first time in eight years I've been treated like a proper man.'

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No nonsense. Authoritarian. My way or the highway, lad.

Nigel Pearson has given lowly Watford a strong chance of escaping the drop since taking over

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There is truth to this, of course. Pearson is as straight a talker as you will find. As one source who knows him well says, he has 'no time for bullsh*t'. Yet the dictatorial perception of him is more of a caricature of the man than any realist portrait.

Much of it has been self-inflicted, mind, whether it be throttling players on the touchline or comparing journalists to long-legged birds. Even the age-old tale of Pearson fighting off wild dogs armed with nothing but a walking pole adds broad strokes to the cartoon more than pencilling in the finer details. The real Pearson is deeper than that.

Before taking the job at Watford, Pearson was midway through a history degree at the Open University. That's currently on hold. He spent some of the summer up in Scotland living alone in a bothy, with only a local fisherman to ferry him from the pub and back. He gave talks to university students. Had he not been summoned to Vicarage Road, he planned to fly to India to drive 9,000 miles across the country in a rickshaw.

The former Leicester manager guided his squad to a 2-0 home win against Manchester United

And it is only when you speak to those close to him do you get the sense of what he's like away from the flash bulbs and dictaphones.

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'He is very different,' says one player who was part of the Leicester side that Pearson kept in the Premier League in 2015 despite spending 140 days at the bottom of the table.

'A lot of the reasons he is like that with the press is to protect the players. If they give everything for him, he won't have anyone say a bad thing about them. He's got your back. We knew him better than how he was in front of the cameras.'

Pearson was raised aloft by his players after steering Leicester to Championship glory in 2014

He famously tangled with Crystal Palace midfielder James McArthur while managing the Foxes

'What you perceive is not what you get,' adds the club's ambassador and former player Alan Birchenall. Birchenall, the former Leicester player turned ambassador has been a mainstay of the club for 40 years.

'To the outside world, he's the ex-military guard: the stature, the haircut, the confrontational stuff. To the people who know him and those he trusts, he is a completely different person.'

And that's a big word for Pearson. Trust. As Deeney says, if you don't buy into what he is trying to build, then you are gone. If you do, though, he will have your back.

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It looks like Watford's players have quickly done that. Deeney certainly has, with three goals since his return from injury. Victory over Bournemouth today will move them outside the bottom three for the first time this season. If Aston Villa then fail to beat Man City, they will stay there.

Pearson was midway through a degree when he agreed to return to Premier League coaching

So what makes players want to run through brick walls for him?

'Because he would run through a brick wall for them,' answers Birchenall. 'You mess with Nigel and he'll kick you in the dooberries. You give everything for him and he will back you all the way, through the good times and the bad. '

Speak to a number of those players who have worked with Pearson and plenty talk of a father figure. 'He sees the team like his family,' says one player.

'As a person he really cared about his players,' current Leicester goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel told YouTube series Gloved. 'He still does, he still cares. He treats them like his own children.'

That's not to say he's a complete softy. 'Oh, 100 per cent,' is the response from the previous player when asked if Pearson ever got the hairdryer treatment out in the Leicester dressing room.

'But more so for ill-discipline or laziness, or if a player was trying to score cheap points by doing something to impress the crowd. If we lacked quality he would not lose his mind, it was if you had not listened to the instructions. And if you were late, it was because you were disrespecting your team-mates.

'He did not care who he shouted at. I have seen managers not say boo to the big guy in the dressing room but he would not care who it was if they stepped out of line. '

Schmeichel once took the brunt after he stormed into Pearson's office when he returned from injury in December 2014 but was left out the side in favour of Mark Schwarzer.

'I had a frank conversation with him but he just stared me down,' Schmeichel said. 'I knew that I had to shut up then. I wasn't going to win that argument.'

Kelvin Davis was at Southampton when Pearson kept them up during a three-month spell there in 2008. 'What stood out when he came here is that he was on his own and took control of the whole club, the whole squad,' he said back in 2015. 'He was very personable which is a great trait.'

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Birchenall tells the story of when he was summoned to Pearson's office one morning by his assistant Craig Shakespeare, now his No2 again at Watford, who brings out the best in Pearson. 'Nigel wants to see you,' he said in an abrupt tone. 'What have I done now', I thought. I walked through the door and the next moment there was a plastic arrow right between my eyes. He'd fired it from a toy crossbow. I've still got the indentation on my forehead!'

Troy Deeney gave an insight to Nigel Pearson, revealing that it is the boss's way or the highway

One player recites another. Leicester had just beaten Ipswich 6-0 in the Championship. Some of the team decided to celebrate with a trip to watch Tony Bellew and Carl Froch boxing in Nottingham.

'The TV cameras panned to the crowd and caught us all drinking,' he says. 'On Monday morning, the gaffer called a meeting. He stood at the front and said, "well done on the game... and I think it was brilliant you went to the boxing." We thought we were going to get hammered. He was only annoyed that everyone had not gone.'

'He was not just like that with the players but with all the staff, whether that was the tea lady or the kit man.'

Pearson encouraged his players to take time out and socialise together, an ex-player has said

Pearson was known as a figure who would attempt to unite staff behind the scenes at his clubs

It comes as no surprise then that on his first day at Watford he summoned all the staff, including the laundry and kitchen workers, into the canteen to tell them all that together they would instil soul at the club.

When asked what one story sums Pearson up, Birchenall goes back to a distressing night in 2017. Birchenall, now 74, collapsed on stage at an awards ceremony and suffered a cardiac arrest. A defibrillator saved his life. When he woke up the next morning at Glenfield Hospital, the first thing he saw was Pearson stood with his arms folded.

'About time you woke up, I've been stood here for hours.'

Pearson has performed previous miracles including keeping Leicester up in the 2014-15 term

Pearson had not been Leicester manager for nearly two years. 'He travelled down from Sheffield that night to be with me,' says Birchenall. 'That's the Nigel I know.'

Pearson could inspire yet another great escape. Not only is Leicester's survival on his CV, but also Southampton in 2008. As assistant, he helped West Brom stay in the Premier League in 2005 and in his first managerial job, at Carlisle, on-loan goalkeeper Jimmy Glass scored the late winner to keep the club in the Football League in 1999.

As fate would have it, Glass is now player liaison officer at Bournemouth. He has already sent Pearson a text ahead of today's game.

'He got freedom of the city…and I got the sack!' jokes Pearson.

If he keeps Watford up this season, it is more likely he will get the former even if he is at a club with a propensity to sack managers.

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'I know that there is loads to be done,' says Pearson. 'If you had said to me in week one we can take it to the last game of the season, I'd have gone, "I'll take that now". Whether that changes, who knows? But there is lots to do yet.'