Stuart Pearce has hailed Harry Redknapp’s man-management skills as second to none.

Although Pearce will be in charge for England’s friendly with Holland on Wednesday, it is widely expected Redknapp will be steering the Three Lions into Euro 2012.

Redknapp remains the overwhelming choice of both players and supporters alike.

It is hardly a view Pearce disagrees with, having been plucked by the Londoner from obscurity at Newcastle as a 37-year-old and shoved straight into the West Ham first team.

“Harry’s man-management skills are outstanding,” said Pearce.

“I was at Newcastle and looking to move clubs and he rang me a week before the start of the season, having not even signed me, and told me to get fit because I was playing for West Ham against Tottenham the following Saturday.

“I worked with him for two years and I really enjoyed it. He makes everyone feel important.”

It is a trait Pearce feels has been evident in all the great managers, including his own mentor Brian Clough.

That Clough never got the opportunity to manage his country is still a hugely-controversial topic.

Pearce will be the first of the firebrand’s former players to do the job, although he insists there will be little of Clough in the home dugout on Wednesday night.

“He was a fantastic role model for me,” said Pearce.

“During those really informative years, between 23 and 31, he developed me as a man and a player. But that’s as far as it goes.

“I would never try to emulate him and what he’s done. You pick up little bits and pieces, good and bad, from former managers but you have to make your own calls.”

And for all the talk of Redknapp, Pearce will be the man who decides which 11 players start against the beaten World Cup finalists. He will decide who wears the captain’s armband.

Not bad for someone who worked in a Wembley food kiosk as a 14-year-old growing up in west London.

“I could never have imagined the course your life takes but I am pleased and honoured to be here,” he said.

The tantalising question is how long will it last.

There was no disguising the forceful nature of Pearce’s request to be left in the job for Euro 2012, made in front of Club England managing director Adrian Bevington and FA director of football development Sir Trevor Brooking, two of the four men who will make the final recommendations.

Yet there was something that did not quite ring true.

Pearce says his tournament experience makes him the right man to rule in Poland and Ukraine this summer, yet not to do the job long-term.

“A lot of people sat in my position would have played a different game and let speculation run,” he said.

“I’m not that way inclined. It’s right and proper to put my cards on the table, not just for myself and everyone on the outside, but for my employers as well.

“I know where I am in my progression as a coach and a manager.

“The pressures and everything else that goes with the job make it for a man with more experience.”

Can that experience come through the Under-21s, which is Pearce’s day job, or the Olympics, which he will also wrestle with this summer?

If England win well on Wednesday, Pearce’s status will have strengthened. Suddenly he will look like a good option.

He insists that should not be the case

“I look with envy at Fabio Capello’s CV. It is the same with Harry Redknapp when you see how many games he’s managed and how well Tottenham are playing.

“Sometimes, in your mind, you get a feel for it.

“I’m more experienced today than I was nine months ago. I’ll be more experienced again after the summer. Come Wednesday night, I’ll be a lot more experienced about what it’s like to stand in the technical area as the England senior manager, and the exposure that throws at you.

“But I have only managed for 160 games. At this present moment in time, it is not for me.”