Paul Jewell, whose Wigan side take on Manchester City at Eastlands on Saturday, has already pleaded guilty to an FA misconduct charge following his sustained attack on Phil Dowd following a recent defeat at Arsenal, while Gunners boss Arsene Wenger re-ignited the row over the Carling Cup fracas last night by claiming an assistant referee had told “lies” over the involvement of Emmanuel Adebayor.

In his two years as top flight boss, Pearce has steadfastly refused to criticise officials. He has no intention of changing that policy, even though he feels some managers use it as a way of trying to ensure major decisions go in their side’s favour.

But, he feels one of the ways rows could be avoided would be for referees to work their way round the clubs away from match-days and offer an insight into the perils of their job.

“It is crucial to have dialogue,” said Pearce.

“No referee has been to our training ground in the two years I have been here.

“I would love the referee’s association to say Howard Webb or one of the other guys was coming down next week to referee a training session.

“It is not about building a relationship with someone who you think might give you a decision, you can put questions to them away from the 90 minutes on matchday, where the emotions are really high.

“You saw that with Paul Jewell. Whether you thought Emile Heskey had a case for a penalty or not, it is a tense time

“It would be nice for him to have time with a referee during the week when emotions are not that high so he could say: ’Look, this might help you,’ and the referee would be in a position to do the same thing.”

Pearce has been known to give fourth officials in particular an ear-bashing as he patrols his technical area. However, he believes his team have failed to get one penalty from three obvious handball decisions this term and has so far managed to refrain from picking on an easy scapegoat.

“It is easy to get frustrated with referees but I don’t think it is overly helpful to lambast them in public,” he said.

“I am sure at some point in the future, I will react in a way I will eventually regret.

“One thing is for sure, if I was officiating, I wouldn’t want someone shouting and hollering at me if I gave an honest decision.”

Pearce will be hoping for some sympathetic refereeing from Webb on Saturday as his City side look to arrest a run of three straight Premiership defeats to the Latics and scramble away from the relegation zone.

The Blues are still 10 points short of the 40 Pearce believes will ensure survival and defeat to their north-west neighbours would bring the spectre of a financially-catastrophic drop in the Championship.

It is fairly obvious to see why City are in such peril, having scored only 20 goals so far this term, a tally only West Ham and Watford have failed to exceed.

The lack of strike power is one of the major reasons why Pearce has brought Belgium international Emile Mpenza to the club on a short-term contract, although the forward might have to be content with a place on the bench as Bernardo Corradi and Georgios Samaras are given another opportunity to impress.

“Not scoring enough goals has been our Achilles heel this season,” admitted Pearce.

“Our defensive record is reasonably good. We have just failed to hit the net with the chances we have created.

“Emile is a striker with a decent international pedigree, who was someone who was available to come in and give us another option.”

“He is fit enough to play, so now the ball is in his court.”