On his return from loan he played in the FA Cup fourth round replay against Spurs on 15 January 2008 at the Madejski Stadium, with the new England boss Fabio Capello in the stands. Pearce was handed his full debut at the start of the game, and put in a very solid performance before being sacrificed at half time as Steve Coppell made a tactical change and went from 5–4–1 to 4–4–2. Coppell said "People will think the substitution was based on performance, but that couldn't be further from the truth. We just had a game plan and stuck to it."