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The Tim Sherwood Thread

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kevangrealish
kevangrealish

Hello strangers, I for one am excited and nervous as this will no doubt be some of the most important few months we've had in a very long time. We need to hit the ground running there's no doubt abo

sne
sne

TIM SHERWOOD

TRO
TRO

There isn't a fan on here that has got a clue, as to whether Tim Sherwood will be a success or not.   and that includes me.   so, to keep talking like its a bad appointment is ludicrous.   None

juanpabloangel18 Collaborator

juanpabloangel18

Posted
Posted (edited)

Couldn't see this posted anywhere, but I thought this F365 article on Sherwood is pretty on point.

(Great site by the way, their Media Watch column is classic)

http://www.football365.com/news/is-he-a-good-manager-is-he-a-manager

It’s not just that we don’t know if Tim Sherwood is a good manager, more that we don’t even know if he’s a manager at all. Things aren’t going well at Aston Villa…

 

When Tim Sherwood was appointed as Aston Villa manager last season, he turned up at his unveiling press conference looking like a man who had slept in the office after a work party, eyes bloodshot and stubble at five o’clock. Or, as one wag on the internet put it, he looked ‘like he’s about to appeal for the safe return of his stepdaughter, but you already know he did it.’ This, you’ll remember, was after he’d been off for eight months following his dismissal by Spurs, so one wondered how he would look after the stresses and strains of Premier League management took their toll.

 

We are now discovering exactly that, as Sherwood shuffles out after every defeat, his face a curious mixture of disconsolate deflation, abject fear but also a steely cockiness that may or may not be put on. He looks a bit like a man off on an extreme sports holiday with the lads who has forgot to take out any travel insurance; behind the facade is absolute terror, but his default bravado won’t stop him sinking that first pint before the 7am flight. Compare Sherwood’s visage with Paul Lambert, who looks about ten years younger these days than when he occupied the Villa big chair.

 

Aston Villa are, all in all, a piping hot mess at the moment. They haven’t won in the league since the opening day, losing six of their last seven matches and the only brief moment of respite, the single draw in that spell, was against Sunderland, whose incompetence (along with Newcastle’s) is the only thing keeping Villa off the bottom of the table.

This run in itself doesn’t prove that Sherwood is a fraud, a man who has reached his current position by riding a wave of his own ego but who doesn’t actually have the first idea of what he’s doing, but the signs aren’t good. Not quite so much in the results, but that in the last few games Sherwood has looked as if he’s groping around in the dark, like a man hunting for his spectacles at 2am. He seems to try different tactics and approaches in every game, usually without a huge amount of logic, and according to FootballLineups.com he has used five different formations in those seven games (the last, a 3-5-2 against Stoke, abandoned at half-time), altering personnel each time. Sometimes a flexible approach gives a manager an air of admirable adaptability, but sometimes it suggests a manager who doesn’t really know what he’s doing.

 

It’s for this reason that we don’t really know what sort of manager Sherwood is. In the summer he commented that this season we would see what a Tim Sherwood side really was, and when questioned as to exactly what a Tim Sherwood side was, he simply replied “Winners.” After the defeat to Stoke, he said: “I had a manager in the opposite dugout (Mark Hughes) who hasn’t had it his own way at every club but he’s come through and stuck to his beliefs. That’s exactly what Tim Sherwood will be doing.”

Leaving aside the third person reference for a second, what exactly are those beliefs? Without an intimate presence in the Villa dressing room it’s slightly difficult to say exactly what his managerial approach is, but it sure as hell isn’t obvious from the way Villa have been playing. It’s not just that we don’t really yet know if Sherwood is a good manager, but that we don’t really know if he’s a manager at all, or just a smooth talker who’s prepared to wear as many items from the club shop at one time as possible.

 

The one thing we do know about Sherwood is that he’s a Football Man, because people say so. People like Jamie Redknapp, admittedly, but people nonetheless. And one of the things about a Football Man is that they’re no nonsense, they don’t take any rubbish from anyone and they keep things simple. That was something one could see in Sherwood in his brief spells of promise, that he thought of simplicity as a virtue and that complexity only, well, complicated things, a perfectly valid approach that has worked in the past. That has seemingly been abandoned this season and nervous tinkering has taken its place.

 

Perhaps Sherwood isn’t actually a manager at all. The only real, definite and distinguishable quality that he seems to have is an ability to get the best from previously underperforming strikers. Both Emmanuel Adebayor and Christian Benteke flourished under Sherwood’s tutelage, admittedly via some relatively basic psychology which appeared to consist of him telling both men they were great. Again, simple it might be, but it worked. Maybe he should sack the managerial thing off, and simply operate as some sort of freelance striker whisperer, a consultant who goes from club to club and has a little word in the shell-like of any out of form striker, gets them scoring and skips away with a fat stack of cash from his generous hourly rate. It’d give him a bit of free time, be a nice little earner and those eyes might not look quite so sunken all the time.

 

Yet it seems he’s quite set on this manager thing. Sherwood has of course been handed some pretty rum cards this season, trying to fashion a Villa side after their two best players were sold. Another, Ron Vlaar, left with the hope of better things only to bugger up his knee. This is a new squad, and one that is in the process of being knitted together, so one can’t hope for instant brilliant results.

 

The thing is, that squad will only be knitted together by someone who knows what he’s doing, by a manager with a clear idea of how he wants to manage. At the moment, Sherwood has shown little of this.

Edited by juanpabloangel18
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VillaCas Enthusiast

VillaCas

Posted
Posted

I don't think you become a badly run club just because you have a shit manager.  Fox has done everything well so far.  Sherwood doesn't look like working out and that's the nature of the business.  It's how quickly and how well you deal with the next step that goes towards determining how well run your club is.  Ignoring the lack of finances from above (we are for sale after all) and the lack of leadership from Sherwood, I believe all the bits in between those 2 are in place and I'm happy with them.  The likes of Fox, Reilly, Almstadt, the introduction of Wijeratna etc.  All positives IMV.  I even believe we've a good squad capable of far more than they're currently achieving.  Nope, once we get a good manager in, I think we could be in very decent shape.  Then just get ourselves a new owner ... which goes back to relegation.  It will be a whole helluva lot easier to find one of those while we're a Premier League side.

The jury's out for me on Fox.  Sherwood was a very odd appointment - no experience and clearly a loose cannon.  Obviously Fox saw him as a long term appointment not a stop gap and that for me is real worry.  The fact that he is not acting decisively now is also a major concern.  

you are saying once we get a good manager we are set but that relies on Fox making hell of a better decision than he did first time round

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Guest av1

Guest av1

Posted
Posted

For the last 5yrs we have played crap football and been in a constant relegation battle.

To that end I would, for a couple of seasons, be happy with crap football and mid table mediocrity.

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markavfc40 Grand Master

markavfc40

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Posted (edited)

I think a manager like Allardyce likes plenty of control and likes to be hands on with everything on the football side. It appears that as a club we have gone down a different route when you hear things like we have a committee that decides on incoming players and a moneyball system was used. I am not sure an old school manager like Allardyce would be willing to work under that kind of set up.

I'd have taken Allardyce though as I think our chances of staying up would have increased dramatically under him and the way things are looking at present that is really all any of us should be concerned about. Style of football for a team that has served up tripe for over 4 years needn't be a consideration and concerning ourselves about whether a potential manager is capable of building for the future and getting us back in to the top third of the league is fantasy thinking given our financial state and the lack of backing from the owner. For now the only thing that matters is we stay in this league and that either requires either a huge turnaround from the current manager or, more likely, decisive action from those above him in securing a manager who can ensure our survival.
 

Edited by markavfc40
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jackbauer24 Community Regular

jackbauer24

Posted
Posted (edited)

Martin O'Neill - (investment from Lerner) - best manager, he's brilliant, good times

Martin O'Neill - (investment ceases, he quits) - useless manager, spent poorly

Gerard Houllier - (limited investment other than relegation fear Bent signing) - past it, useless manager

Alex McLeish - (limited investment but higher wage players still being bought) - rubbish manager, relegation guaranteed 

Paul Lambert - (miniscule investment, wage reductions in place) - useless manager, too conservative

Tim Sherwood - (miniscule investment, wage reductions continue) - useless manager, too adventurous

 

The point I'm getting at is despite the wildly varying abilities, qualities, styles and personalities of the above managers the only pattern that is irrefutable is that lack of investment equals the view we have a rubbish manager! That's why I see no point in calling for Sherwood's head. Is he better or worse than any of the other names on the list, makes so little difference. I personally maintain the best manager on that list is Lambert, that's not to say he was successful, clearly he wasn't, but I still say that is more down to circumstance than ability. He needed to go to freshen things up, but we are settling back to our 'true' position - the position of a team that only spends what it earns from player sales, who reduce wages year on year and absolute best ambition is to survive on lowest spend.

Allardyce apparently wants assurances from Sunderland he'll have a healthy budget in January to sort them out. Does anyone really believe he'd get that here? Like when Lambert was here, I see very little point changing the manager until further investment is guaranteed. Small boost is the absolute best we can hope for, like when Sherwood arrived, until we sink again.

Personally I don't think Sherwood is great at all. I think his team and tactics and overall style leaves a lot to be desired, but he's not taking us down. Lerner is. We bought from abroad because that's all we could 'afford' and it's a gamble that looks unlikely to pay off.

Edited by jackbauer24
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villa4europe Grand Master

villa4europe

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First line isn't true, whilst MON was great and we were flying by the end IMO I thought we'd reached our ceiling, no plan b, favouritism, square pegs etc I had no problem with him leaving, he's a bellend for leaving when he did and we royally **** up just about every decision at the club since so hindsight is a wonderful thing

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Davkaus Grand Master

Davkaus

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First line isn't true, whilst MON was great and we were flying by the end IMO I thought we'd reached our ceiling, no plan b, favouritism, square pegs etc I had no problem with him leaving, he's a bellend for leaving when he did and we royally **** up just about every decision at the club since so hindsight is a wonderful thing

Are people really still blaming MO'N for Randy's decisions, 5 years later?

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KHV Newbie

KHV

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Posted

 

Gerard Houllier - (limited investment other than relegation fear Bent signing) - past it, useless manager

Disagree with this statement, had it not been for his ill helath I actually think Houllier and McAllister would have gone on to do quite well. Houllier had a clear philosophy and plan and would have been a success IMO

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