Pearce told City’s website: “We’ve got more players reporting for international duty now than probably the Club’s had in a number of years. In the previous England squad we’ve had two players, you’ve got to go back a number of years before that’s happened.
“The reserve team are second in their league, pushing Middlesbrough at the top. There’s a great nucleus of young players at this Club and I include Joey Barton as a young player, even though he might have gone past that.
“But personally, looking around at some of the other Premiership teams, I think we’ve got a crop of younger players as good as anybody else.
“Now, it’s just getting those three or four big hitters in that everyone knows and thinks; ‘Christ, we’re a side now that we’ve got him.’ And that’s the ingredient that we’re missing at the moment.
“I’m pleased with the coaching set up I’ve got here, the facilities are fantastic, there’s a lot of good things here. Obviously, the pressure is on me to push it forward from there.”
