Recircle

I think Shaw would've made the same pass, had their positions been reversed (he made just that sort of pass in the build up to the second goal when their positions effectively were reversed). Grealish, Shaw and Kane have started to form a nice alliance. All three also combined in the goal against the Czechs; Shaw was effectively a decoy in that, but Jack conspicuously checked behind himself twice in the build up to that goal to see where Shaw was, drawing out one of the Czech defenders with the second glance.

I didn't mean he wouldn't orchestrate when he gets the chance, but he probably won't become the sort of conduit that he is for Villa. He's just among better players with England, and international tournament knock-out football is cagey, high-stakes stuff; he's bound to drift in and out more.

Pressure was off a bit for the Czech game; England had already qualified for the next stage by then, and the team could play more expansively. From what I've seen, Shaw and Kane notably tend to look for Grealish and bring him into play, but he's not going to be the orchestrator for England like he is for Villa.

The impact role is starting to make sense, isn't it: Grealish gets a stage entrance and a cheer all to himself, and England draws on it as an energy and confidence boost. Bit of an airy strategy nevertheless, playing a largely conservative, containing game for sixty-odd minutes and then unleashing Grealish to lift the atmosphere and add an X-factor to the pattern of play. I'm wondering if there isn't a bit of fitness management being snuck in under cover of that. Maybe there's a concern about how well and for how long his shins can 100% hold up.

Possibly at about the same time that the perfectly fine (and more euphonious word) 'poisonous' started getting dropped in favour of the dull buzzword 'toxic'. Why? hard to say. Maybe using punchy words containing letters like 'v' and 'x' makes the user feel as though he or she is living in a world of swish, sharp-angled megalopolises?

Once might be a typo; used twice and it starts to look pointed (it does, after all, incorporate the word 'berk').

I don't think TRO means Smith is done as a manager when he says "it's done for him", he means the analysis of what's going wrong is being done for him by the pundits on MOTD.

Wins aren't 'found', unfortunately; they have to be created.

Fair enough. I think Zatman's reply quoted just above yours about being "gone by Christmas" if he doesn't start turning it around made me conflate.

That's just under three weeks away. You can start to worry, and rightly, but surely you're not implying that he might be in danger of being ditched after about two months in charge?

It's nice to see this place buzzing with a bit of optimism, but honestly, it's such early, early days. A couple of wins against the Baggies is great; an F.A. Cup semi-final is smashing, but how about reining it in a bit until Villa have pulled clearer of trouble in the Prem?!

Being spared Lineker if Villa go down. There is that silver lining, I suppose.

And certainly, Pulis, whose name is getting bandied about more and more as the guy Villa should've appointed, is a big-up the egos, psychological motivator-type. Sherwood would seem to lean towards the Pulis approach.

Brilliant, that'll keep us in the league. The way a manager talks to the press after a match offers about the only time you get to gauge how he might approach talking to the players into performing better. Part of his job is to fill his players with confidence and belief (somehow!). Sherwood seems like a guy who might be able to psychologically chivvy players more than Lambert, to judge the latter on his perpetual dozy look and phoned-in, emotionless words, post-match.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/live/football/31523058 That's cool-headed, cogent analysis, at least. More insightful than almost any Lambert post-match utterance.

Why would he want to bring down a shit boatload of negative press coverage upon himself by doing something like that? How do you think he would be portrayed? You make him sound like a reality TV star who wants press coverage at any cost! I very much doubt Sherwood is going to walk, unless there's a sudden utter breakdown in communications and understanding between him and those he's directly answerable to.

That would be panicking, plain and simple.

This one thousand times A Midlands guy Pulis is from Wales by way of Bristol! Or are you counting Wales as a 'greater Midlands'?

Look, Tim Sherwood should really have made sure he was in charge of Villa for more days than he has been. It's the 25th of Feb, and he's still only been boss for eleven days. It should be double that, by now. What's going on??

If things eventually worked themselves out 'logically' then I'd probably agree, but this view operates on the basis that 'quality' will always assert itself sooner or later, and that doesn't necessarily always happen. If Villa are to avoid relegation, they're going to have to up their effort and commitment; you fight your way free of trouble (has a team ever finessed their way free?).

If it takes weeks then it follows that'll it be more like years because if the impact isn't instant then we'll be relegated. Exactly this. Whether it's 'fair' on Sherwood or not, there is no bedding in period and no time for him to develop a style of play on the training ground. He's been brought in initially with the one remit - to keep us up and he now has 12 games to do it. Which seems to be a way of saying a manager isn't really important in the current situation; you just need someone to select a team and yell at the players. In that case, why bother appointing a manager for the medium-to-long term now? Surely one of the backroom staff could manage the chivvying, haranguing basics until the end of the season? Whether it's "fair" on the fans or not, a manager has to bed himself in to a degree, otherwise you end up with a nervous, impulsive trigger-happy character, and nervous, impulsive trigger-happy characters don't tend to keep football teams in the Premier League. The bedding-in period available might be compressed more than normally, but Sherwood has to be afforded a little time to adjust to the ins-and-outs of a new job.

Thing is, what would a player, conditioned to playing under Paul Lambert, and badly lacking in self-confidence after a lousy run of matches, look like giving 100%? Not all 100% performances look the same!

Well, Newcastle are currently getting taken apart by City, so they'll be looking to wipe-out the pain of that at St. James' next week. If a win could somehow be fashioned there, it would really give Sherwood a kernel of something to build from.

Yep. "Must win" and "Need to win" have become conflated in today's football chit-chat (can we blame Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, please?).

Which is why (if-the-queen-had-balls aspect notwithstanding) if Villa had won, Sherwood would very likely have been at pains to play down his input into the result.