The Tim Sherwood Thread

[Vive_La_Villa]

And the start last year has nothing to do with how we've started this year.

That's precisly the point I was making.

The point was we had 11 points this team last season and everyone thought we were going to have a good season. Whereas this season we have 4 and there is already doom and gloom.

Take heart from the way we are playing and the fact we have our most creative player to return along with a potential superstar. After 4 games I see more to be excited about than to worry about.

[VillaChris]

We need 4 points in our next two as after that run is Liverpool away (Benteke guarenteed to score), Stoke at home (always seem to lose at home to them nowadays), Chelsea away (will surely be better in two months time), Swansea at home (potential top 6 team this year), Spurs away (difficult) and Man. City at home.

 

That's up to mid november.

[bobzy]

Sherwood saying we had 20+ shots on goal today but didn't win which is all well and good but we could have had 50+ today and not won the game

 

We have no out and out goalscorer at the club at the minute which is frightening

 

FWIW, our £6m striker has scored as many league goals this season as the £32.5m striker we sold.

 

And his wasn't offside.

[Guest av1]

 

Sherwood saying we had 20+ shots on goal today but didn't win which is all well and good but we could have had 50+ today and not won the game

 

We have no out and out goalscorer at the club at the minute which is frightening

 

FWIW, our £6m striker has scored as many league goals this season as the £32.5m striker we sold.

 

And his wasn't offside.

 

 

 

Not sure what your point is here really, I'd agree with Ashvilla that we haven't got an out and out striker at the club. Goal scoring tallies at this stage mean nothing, Callum Wilson has more than Sergio Aguero atm, doesn't mean I'd want to swap. 

 

We need as Striker urgently.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

I can't understand frustration at the result, and perhaps individual players. But generally we are looking good. Still lacking our x factor too.

This is nothing like last season. Thank God.

[Fab]

Tim, I like you. But please start using your substitutions a little more (Kozak for Gestede would have been the obvious one today).

[Dodgyknees]

I can't understand frustration at the result, and perhaps individual players. But generally we are looking good. Still lacking our x factor too.

This is nothing like last season. Thank God.

 

Yep. Far too early to worry and we aren't looking like a team who need to fluke results.

[Zatman]

yeah last season we got 10 points somehow and was no real pattern or the fact we were moving forward. 10 summer signings will take a bit of time to bed in but I can see we are moving forward and think we are playing decent enough stuff which will only get better

 

we are a lot less one dimensional now that Benteke is gone which is not a dig at him but I think we relied on him too much which was a problem. now we have Gil, Adama, Grealish, Amavi, Sinclair and even Ayew and Gestede who have different attributes to hurt teams

[Dodgyknees]

yeah last season we got 10 points somehow and was no real pattern or the fact we were moving forward. 10 summer signings will take a bit of time to bed in but I can see we are moving forward and think we are playing decent enough stuff which will only get better

 

we are a lot less one dimensional now that Benteke is gone which is not a dig at him but I think we relied on him too much which was a problem. now we have Gil, Adama, Grealish, Amavi, Sinclair and even Ayew and Gestede who have different attributes to hurt teams

 

Yep.

 

I hope most will be rested/back to fitness by the end of the international break and with that a little more settled.

[Villarocker]

The fact is, AT THE MOMENT, we look like we're going to badly miss Benteke's goals. Gestede looks miles away from him in terms of overall ability. In fact, those words of Sherwood's where he said that Liverpool don't play to Benteke's style by not crossing as much, well, they could come back to haunt him because Gestede looks like a one dimensional striker who thrives only on decent crosses.

I think we need a striker. I thought we'd be OK a week or so ago but I had a re-think today and concluded that those we have do not look good enough for double figures. Although, playing Sinclair there might prove to be more beneficial to the team.

[andym]

For all this talk that Advocaat made some genius changes and Tim couldnt react, i thought most of our problems in that early 2nd half period were of our own making by individual errors on the pitch. Sunderland replaced the completely ineffective Graham for the slightly more effective Fletcher, and the horrendous Cattermole for Toivonen, yet i honestly didnt see any major tactical issues from that. It wasnt like Sunderland were suddenly camped around our box, its just they now actually had the ball in our half for more than 10 seconds.

Fletcher had a header from a deep cross (clark was weak here) and then the goal - we had the ball on the halfway line, comfortable in possession. Westwood pings it into Gestede whos loses his 1 on 1 battle, Sanchez is weak and loses his 1 on 1 battle, and the less said about Clarks defending the better. Entirely preventable if each player does his job. After that i think they had the Defoe chance where Hutton went to sleep, but apart from that we dominated and should have scored again, and more than once really.

When a team has most of the possession, most of the attacking threat and most of the chances over the full 90 mins, i tend to think the manager has generally got it right in terms of set up and tactics.

 

Where i think Sherwood can be critisised is that we came out for the 2nd half with far too a careless attitude. It happened last week, and you could also argue it happened in the first half today and midweek. We are showing a lack of concentration and good chances or goals against are happening early on because of it, and that means we are constantly having to find our way back into the game.

[Xela]

Disappointed not to win but encouraging signs and we are a far better team than we were under Lambert. We are lacking a centre back (which hopefully will be resolved very soon) and a striker. I think we will be fine this season once the new players have fully settled. 

 

The overreactions are hilarious. We were far the better team in the first half, Sunderland make a few changes and Sherwood is vilified by some for not making immediate changes straight away - to me that would show a lack of faith in the players that put you 2-1 up at HT. It was a mistake that got them back into the game but we still should have won and 9 times out of 10 we would have.

 

I'm disappointed with the result but happy with the job Sherwood is doing. I'd be happier with another striker though! 

[foreveryoung]

Reminds me too much of O'neil with his subs, like he don't make emm! Kozak for Gestede today would have changed nothing other than maybe offered us a bit more of a goal threat. 

 

I also didn't like Hutton at right back playing creator (though I guess this was forced today), Lambert used to play these tactics and it has never worked.

[penguin]

For all this talk that Advocaat made some genius changes and Tim couldnt react, i thought most of our problems in that early 2nd half period were of our own making by individual errors on the pitch. Sunderland replaced the completely ineffective Graham for the slightly more effective Fletcher, and the horrendous Cattermole for Toivonen, yet i honestly didnt see any major tactical issues from that. It wasnt like Sunderland were suddenly camped around our box, its just they now actually had the ball in our half for more than 10 seconds.

Fletcher had a header from a deep cross (clark was weak here) and then the goal - we had the ball on the halfway line, comfortable in possession. Westwood pings it into Gestede whos loses his 1 on 1 battle, Sanchez is weak and loses his 1 on 1 battle, and the less said about Clarks defending the better. Entirely preventable if each player does his job. After that i think they had the Defoe chance where Hutton went to sleep, but apart from that we dominated and should have scored again, and more than once really.

When a team has most of the possession, most of the attacking threat and most of the chances over the full 90 mins, i tend to think the manager has generally got it right in terms of set up and tactics.

 

Where i think Sherwood can be critisised is that we came out for the 2nd half with far too a careless attitude. It happened last week, and you could also argue it happened in the first half today and midweek. We are showing a lack of concentration and good chances or goals against are happening early on because of it, and that means we are constantly having to find our way back into the game.

 

Spot on.

 

Sunderland were never going to be as poor as they were first half. Advocaat bought on some attacking players, hardly an unforeseen tactical masterstroke, and they played with intensity from the off searching for the equaliser, again hardly unexpected. The team setup was more than adequate to deal with this but due to individual error we concede. Sherwood getting 'out thought' seems to be the go-to criticism, I'm not saying it doesn't happen but every time we concede or have a bad passage it pops up. 

[AVTuco]

People play too much FM. In real life a manager can't react to everything his opponent does. You have to believe in what you do.

Making subs when we're leading, and doing very well... it just doesn't make any sense.

[foreveryoung]

People play too much FM. In real life a manager can't react to everything his opponent does. You have to believe in what you do.

Making subs when we're leading, and doing very well... it just doesn't make any sense.

We was 2-1 up then 2-2, it was looking Gestede was never gonna get a goal, so what about bringing Kozak on when we are struggling to put away our 20 shots. Or was Sherwood happy with the draw.

[penguin]

 

People play too much FM. In real life a manager can't react to everything his opponent does. You have to believe in what you do.

Making subs when we're leading, and doing very well... it just doesn't make any sense.

We was 2-1 up then 2-2, it was looking Gestede was never gonna get a goal, so what about bringing Kozak on when we are struggling to put away our 20 shots. Or was Sherwood happy with the draw.

 

 

Why would Kozak have been any better though? In hindsight we can say he might as well have tried but what if Rudy would have scored a last minute header, then everyone would be lauding him for keeping him on.

 

To say the manager was playing for a draw by not bringing off Gestede is quite frankly ridiculous imo, what we were doing was clearly creating chances and we were the better team and Sherwood obviously saw no reason or benefit in making any changes. Play that last 30 minutes again, without any changes and we easily win it more often that not.

Edited August 29, 2015 by penguin

[AVTuco]

People play too much FM. In real life a manager can't react to everything his opponent does. You have to believe in what you do.

Making subs when we're leading, and doing very well... it just doesn't make any sense.

We was 2-1 up then 2-2, it was looking Gestede was never gonna get a goal, so what about bringing Kozak on when we are struggling to put away our 20 shots. Or was Sherwood happy with the draw.

Sure, Tim could've subbed Gestede for Kozak. Or subbed Bacuna for Gil earlier. Which could, or could not, have made a difference. He decided to believe in his players, which was ok for me. We were comfortable all game and should've won.

[darrenm]

Same as most others, I'm mostly positive but I do have this nagging feeling that while we have some good players now, they're just a bit too complacent to be effective.

 

Perhaps if you shackle them too much you kill the creativity. I'm not a manager so I don't know.

 

Main problem for me today is the lack of action until too late. The same thing happens every match. Everyone could see that Bacuna wasn't playing well and needed taking off in favour of either Gil for a like for like swap, or another CF such as Kozak to switch to 4-4-2.

 

This needed to happen at half time. It was plainly obvious that Sherwood was waiting until 68 minutes to make the switch. Straight out of the Martin O'Neill handbook and probably passed down to Sherwood from Harry. I suppose the old thinking is that giving a player 20 mins at the end of the game gives the most impact with fresh against tired legs rather than at half time where everyone is coming back out fresh.

 

But in the modern game, 20 minutes isn't enough to have any kind of impact. MON and Lambert both did it. I thought Sherwood was a bit more progressive.

[HanoiVillan]

How do you manage to get 11 points from 4 games?

 

Outsource updating the league table to Arthur Andersen.