Nigel does know his best 2 centre backs. Its Wes Morgan and Sean St. Ledger because they are the only centre backs we have
I'd take Pearce over Morgan and St. Ledger right now, not to mention he's younger than both and already been Portsmouth's captain. I'm also quite happy to take Drury and Green on frees. Those 3 for ~£400k, or a non-league striker for over £1m, which is better value for money?
Pearce is a decent championship defender but we have and need more then that. Nigel has an eye for getting a quality defender on the cheap. Just ask the Hull fans aswell Michael Morrison, Wayne Brown, Jack Hobbs, Aleksandar Tunchev, James Chester have all been signed by Nigel for next to nothing and all was quality defenders
I don't see how anyone can knock Andrews, I also can't believe people are saying St Ledger is better than Pearce, despite him scoring that one goal, St Ledger was awful and was even more worse than Andrews, his man marking is shocking and he couldn't even stay on his own two feet, Pearce for 500k is a better signing than St Ledger for 1M
Why do people keep knocking players based on their Euro performance? Base it on their performances last season AT THE LEVEL THEY BOTH PLAYED AT and it's clear that SSL is a better player, but Pearce for 400k (for a young prospect) is good business.
http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/season=2012/statistics/castroledge/ranking/index.html According to this St Ledger was by far Ireland's best performer. Takes everything into account. Blocks, tackles, headers, passes, shots, goals, crosses, offsides...