NIGEL Pearson knows only too well that there is a time and a place to poke a dangerous animal with a stick.

For the Leicester City boss, it was four years ago in the Romanian mountains when he was attacked by a pack of wild dogs.

Isolated and cornered, Pearson jabbed the dogs in the eyes with his hiking stick, then rolled into stinging nettles in an attempt to escape. When the dogs attacked him for a second time, he poked them again.

MORE TOP STORIES:

It is perhaps the most remarkable battle between football manager and untamed beast, just ahead of that time when Scunthorpe United boss Alan Knill was knocked off his bike by a squirrel.

That day in the Carpathian mountains, Pearson had no option. Poking the dogs might not exactly have calmed their mood, but it was his only chance of escape.

In October, things were a little different. Clarets substitute Ross Wallace had just scored a stunning 96th-minute equaliser at the King Power Stadium to deny Leicester victory, and Pearson was not happy.

Bizarrely, his ire was not confined to his own players, but directed at Burnley too.

“We’re better than we were last season and I don’t think they are as good as they were on today’s performance,” said Pearson, somewhat puzzlingly.

Even if that were true, it rather overlooked the fact that Burnley were without both regular strikers and both regular central midfielders that day because of injury.

“They didn’t come here to play any fluid football,” he continued. “I don’t feel that we were threatened too much by them.”

They were surprising insults, unmerited and unnecessary.

There is no documented evidence of Sean Dyche engaging in hand to hand combat with wild animals.

One imagines he might fare quite well, but Dyche has always been one for the subtle approach.

His riposte to Pearson was suitably measured, just as it was with Jose Mourinho.

“I made a conscious decision when I first came into management, I don’t question the opposition, I don’t talk about other managers,” he said as he refused to discuss the situation.

Some may have drawn from that an inference that Pearson might like to take the same approach, but Dyche left it unsaid.

Pearson’s comments did not go down well with Burnley’s fans though and Dyche could do worse than bring them to the attention of his players before Saturday’s rematch at Turf Moor, if they were not already fully aware of them.

Leicester’s season is waxing rather than waning right now, and Burnley dropped below them on Saturday.

But the Clarets remain a dangerous animal, and Pearson has poked them with a stick.

Not as good as last season? Prove him wrong.