A year ago some talked about him being the man to lead England out of the sterile era of Sven-Goran Eriksson.

Right now there is barely a Manchester City supporter who would trust the former Brent Council plumber to unblock their drains.

Rarely has a football manager's reputation fallen so far or so fast. And the truth is Pearce has only himself to blame.

No-one doubts Pearce's patriotism or his dignity but after Manchester City meekly exited the FA Cup to Blackburn you have to doubt his judgement.

On so many things.

For touting for and taking the England Under-21 job alongside his club post, which has handed the City supporters a convenient stick with which to beat Mr 'Two Jobs'.

For placing that daft cuddly toy in the dugout.

For investing in strikers who push the trade description boundaries to their outer limits.

For instance £6million Georgios Samaras has scored eight goals in 41 league matches, £1.5million Bernardo Corradi has three in 23 while this season you have scored as many Premiership goals as Paul Dickov.

That would be none, just in case you were wondering.

A manager is always judged on his signings and while Dickov was an Alan Ball-style investment, the fact is that Pearce's ultimately have let him down.

Of course, Pearce would be the last to admit it and manfully after each defeat he accepts the blame, saying: "The flak stops with me."

But then garrulously he goes on to unmask that judgement problem again.

"We're not scoring as freely as I'd like," he says. "But defensively and in spirit things are good. There are no splits in the camp."

No splits? Really, you do have to wonder if Pearce goes around with cotton wool in his ears.

Take this weekend's offering from club captain Richard Dunne.

"When players come from abroad you always get a settling in period," said Dunne. "But we have now got to March and they still haven't clicked. It gets to a stage where they have to look at themselves. If you're not pulling your weight you need to up your game and start proving the manager was right to bring you to the club."

Not so much a split then. More a San Andreas fault line running through the Manchester City dressing room with the homespun likes of Dunne and Joey Barton on one side, the foreigners on the other and Darius Vassell in that no-end-product world of his own which once he occupied for England.

Few clubs can survive a fissure of such magnitude.

Not when the fans have lost the faith. The cries of 'Pearce out' have grown over the past fortnight, the phone-in lines are buzzing with lucid, as well as insulting, consideration of why he should go and on Sunday the supporters baited the players with that in-vogue chant which is the modern equivalent of an end-is-nigh placard: "You're not fit to wear the shirt."

The fact is some are, some are not and if City were riding high in the Premiership, scoring goals freely, pushing for Europe, then that would be surmountable.

But they are not. They are pressing on the door of the championship, showing all the signs of a club in terminal free-fall with a Premiership run-in which starts on Wednesday against Chelsea and includes games against Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham.

Normally, the instinct would be to back any manager groomed by Brian Clough and who showed such resilience as a player to ride the storm. But, tactically, Pearce increasingly is perceived as clueless.

Harsh? Perhaps, especially as Pearce talks sense when he insists: "People were talking about me and England a year ago. That's crazy. Am I now the worst in the world? Far from it."

That, however, misses the point. It is whether in two months' time Pearce is among the worst three in the Premiership which counts.

Increasingly, it looks as if Mr 'Two Jobs' will be down to one by then.