The England Under-21 side has been the main focus for Pearce since leaving his role as Manchester City manager in 2007 and while he will have learned a lot from his time with the Blues it would be unfair to read too much into his record there.
A quick glance at some of the newspaper articles from the time of his sacking show what appears to be a different world at the Manchester club as they awaited a potential takeover by Thaksin Shinawatra, with the names in the frame as Pearce's successor including Paul Simpson, Chris Coleman, Danny Wilson and one Billy Davies although Shinawatra did then come in and appoint Sven-Goran Eriksson.
A severe shortage of goals, especially in home games, hampered Pearce's team in his final season in charge but these were not the days when City could buy almost any player they wanted.
The manager put his limited transfer budget into the signing of a young, Greek striker named Georgios Samaras from Heerenveen and although that did not work out at the time the player himself (soon to leave Celtic) has shown his qualities since.