The Tim Sherwood Thread

[Stevo985]

Overall the squad is better than it was last year. Just need someone to manage them properly.

Disagree with this. We have replaced Lowton with Crespo, Baker with Ilori, Vlaar with Richards, Senderos with Lescott,Delph with Gana, Cleverley with Veretout, Benteke with Gestede and Weimann with Ayew. I'm failing to see any level of improvement apart from Richards coming in.

Christ, this is a depressingly true statement.

Kind of.

It's too early to tell on most players. Crespo could well be an upgrade on Lowton.

Too early for Illori

Richards is an upgrade on Vlaar so far

Lescott has started poorly, but given how little Senderos featured last season, anything is an upgrade.

I'd say there's a good chance Gana will end up better than Delph, however controversial that may be.

Veretout the jury is out, but probably not an upgrade on Cleverley

Ayew is better than Weimann

Gestede is a downgrade on Benteke, but so is any striker that we could have bought in all honesty.

[Zatman]

I would say Adama is an upgrade on N'zogbia

[VillaCas]

Overall the squad is better than it was last year. Just need someone to manage them properly.

Disagree with this. We have replaced Lowton with Crespo, Baker with Ilori, Vlaar with Richards, Senderos with Lescott,Delph with Gana, Cleverley with Veretout, Benteke with Gestede and Weimann with Ayew. I'm failing to see any level of improvement apart from Richards coming in.

Christ, this is a depressingly true statement.

 

No it's not and it ignores Traore and Amavi who look like they could get into most Prem teams. Lescott has been crap but will get better, Ilori will be better than Baker, Richards is an upgrade on Vlaar, Veretout and Gana will get better in a settled side under a competent manager, would you swap Weimann back for Ayew? I wouldn't. Senderos was injured more than he played. Lowton was not prem quality

We havent replaced Benteke but we were never going to without spending £30-£40m and there is no chance a £30-£40m player would come to us

Under a decent manager this lot are easily good enough for 11th or 12th

[VillanousOne]

Sherwood gave Grealish his chance at regular football rather than cameos, that seemed a good move. But one he now seems to be reversing.

He mishandled Gil, then gave Gil a chance which seemed to start to pay off, now Ray 'vintage tactic' Wilkins has helped him reverse that decision.

weak minded doesn't cover it

[bobzy]

 

Ayew is better than Weimann

 

Don't get this conclusion.  Based purely on a disliking of Weimann I assume as Ayew has done nothing here (bar a good 45 minutes against a Championship club).

[dn1982]

Comparing the squads doesn't take it account things like players settling and players developing. Grealish Gil and Sanchez should be better than last year but none seem to be getting played in their best position or at all! We have a decent squad but yet again it's underperforming due to the manager. Sherwood came in with a clear plan which was to attack he seems to have given up on that now. No midfield runners no width when you play with a target man no tempo things that at easily fixed but I fear Sherwood isn't up to it!! 

[TrentVilla]

I would say Adama is an upgrade on N'zogbia

I'm now looking for that picture of the brick again....

[VillanousOne]

[avfc1982am]

We're more adrift now than we ever were under Lambert IIRC

Dare I say it? Lambert is a much better manager than Sherwood. 

 

No he ain't mate. We would definitely have dropped last year as it was apparent for quite a long time that Lambert had also lost the plot. Regardless of Sherwoods management this season and although benteke was becoming fitter last season when he arrived, under Lambert we weren't creating anything to suggest he would start scoring goals. Sherwood came in and ensured we at least played to his strengths. 

The truth is neither are anywhere near good enough to manage a club the size of Villa as the expectation has proved to be too heavy a burden for them to carry. 

None of that says Lambert isn't still a better manager than Sherwood. Don't get me wrong, he lost it in a bad way and he had to go but Lambert did keep us up under trying circumstances and he never once threw his toys out the pram. Fair play to Tim for his part in us staying up, but I am now utterly convinced it was a result of circumstances rather than Tim's managerial abilities - as I'm not quite sure he really has any. 

Paul Lambert certainly wasn't great but at least he was an actual manager, not an arrogant egomaniac pretending to be one. 

It is as someone also mentioned impossible to make comparisons regarding both Lambert and Sherwoods managerial capabilities. Lambert an actual manager you claim? Well Sherwood is currently an actual manager also- regardless of opinions. I would also use the term 'Actual', loosely if I were you as both are failing to prove management as a competent skill they possess.

Lambert was a clown of the highest order and in the 3 years he "managed Villa", failed to manage his own backroom staff let alone the players. He failed to find a system to suit the team and progress the style of football he was attempting to implement. Had a top striker in Darren Bent(when he arrived) and managed to turn him into a conference player. We could go on and on and on about his continual breaking of records(the unwanted ones), and his mumbling interviews whereby you could never make head nor tail of anything he was saying. And what about all the glorious cup exits at the hands of teams costing a fraction of our own? Lambert was a terrible manager for Villa in every respect even with Benteke, Delph, Cleverly and Vlaar at his disposal. 

No doubt Sherwood is an grade A idiot with his behaviour at times however he is currently presiding over the largest overhaul of a squad that I can remember and has had only 8 games, not 3 years to get things together. Okay he's had the best part of 50m yet he lost the four players mentioned above(and more) who if valued correctly would easily swallow the 50m and some. he also done something Lambert couldn't do which was get the team creating chances which ultimately led to us reaching the FA Final - with Lambert's so called shite team might I add.

Now I'm not saying Sherwood is better than or vice versa because as I mentioned in a previous post what is becoming more and more apparent is neither are good enough however the nonsense by some to slag Sherwood to the point of comparisons with Lambert is just stupid. The only comparison imo worth making is that both are complete shite at choosing a system to play picking the right players and relaying that information to them in order for us to win football matches. 

[Marka Ragnos]

A shoestring?! Did you see how much money we spent this summer? Lambert had sod all in comparison. 

Rubbish! Who gives a piss about what Lambert had? He failed. 

You're so dedicated to the Tim-Is-Root-Of-All-Wrong paradigm, you can't see the bigger picture. 

In the context of the league, Villa hasn't spent shite. We're #18 in rank -- and in net spending.

Not good enough for a team that has barely survived relegation year after year. 

[Marka Ragnos]

We're more adrift now than we ever were under Lambert IIRC

Dare I say it? Lambert is a much better manager than Sherwood. 

 

No he ain't mate. We would definitely have dropped last year as it was apparent for quite a long time that Lambert had also lost the plot. Regardless of Sherwoods management this season and although benteke was becoming fitter last season when he arrived, under Lambert we weren't creating anything to suggest he would start scoring goals. Sherwood came in and ensured we at least played to his strengths. 

The truth is neither are anywhere near good enough to manage a club the size of Villa as the expectation has proved to be too heavy a burden for them to carry. 

None of that says Lambert isn't still a better manager than Sherwood. Don't get me wrong, he lost it in a bad way and he had to go but Lambert did keep us up under trying circumstances and he never once threw his toys out the pram. Fair play to Tim for his part in us staying up, but I am now utterly convinced it was a result of circumstances rather than Tim's managerial abilities - as I'm not quite sure he really has any. 

Paul Lambert certainly wasn't great but at least he was an actual manager, not an arrogant egomaniac pretending to be one. 

 

It is as someone also mentioned impossible to make comparisons regarding both Lambert and Sherwoods managerial capabilities. Lambert an actual manager you claim? Well Sherwood is currently an actual manager also- regardless of opinions. I would also use the term 'Actual', loosely if I were you as both are failing to prove management as a competent skill they possess.

Impossible -- and inane.  A tiresome dead horse that's been beaten to a suppurating pus-stain smeared in its own offal.

 

[StefanAVFC]

We're back at net spend?

Lol.

We spent more than enough to not be 18th and 4 points adrift.

[Isa]

It's amazing how many neglect to realise that we only spent [circa] £50m precisely because of the Benteke sale. The proceeds from his departure provided a competitive budget, one which should have provided the platform to end the run of relegation battles. 

Edited October 14, 2015 by Isa

[Nabby]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/aston-villa/11932271/If-Tim-Sherwood-is-sacked-those-behind-Aston-Villas-deeply-flawed-transfer-policy-should-pay-too.html

At Ajax they call it the club’s “technical heart” and it is staffed by some of the most famous players in their recent history. At Liverpool it is known as the “transfer committee” and includes some who could stroll down Walton Breck Road without fear of being recognised. At Aston Villa they do not yet have a name for those responsible for signing players, but the club’s current situation suggests that, whatever it is they are trying to do, it certainly isn’t working.

Tim Sherwood, the Villa manager, goes into Saturday’s game against Chelsea with the unenviable task of making the club’s brave summer transfer strategy work, safe in the knowledge that it will be him politely ushered out the gates should it fail. As the old managerial saying on player recruitment goes, it is a team effort right up to the moment that the director of football is stood on the kerbside waving goodbye to the manager.

No modern manager can take on the burden of player recruitment alone, in an age when Villa are more likely to sign a player from Lorient or Barcelona B than Chelmsford City from where they once plucked a teenage Nigel Spink. Southampton and Swansea City have led the way in developing recruitment systems which not only acquire new players with the buy-in of managers, but also replace managers themselves with the minimum of fuss or disruption.

At Villa, this summer’s policy of buying almost exclusively young players with the emphasis on potential has so far left them 18th with four points from eight games. Their manager is now obliged to oversee his new charges’ development in the midst of a relegation fight, as well as save his own job– and all this before the clocks have even gone back.

All Villa transfer policy is overseen by the German sporting director Hendrik Almstadt, recruited this summer by chief executive Tom Fox from his former club Arsenal. Almstadt had originally joined Arsenal on the commercial side but his interest in data analytics, scouting and contract management permitted him a change in direction towards player recruitment.

The director of scouting and recruitment Paddy Reilly came back from Liverpool last year for his second spell at Villa and his connection with Randy Lerner, the club’s owner, has proven crucial. The Villa owner has the final sign-off on all transfers and he has endorsed the view that young players, with the potential to be sold at a profit must be a priority.

The club’s stated policy in their summer transfer dealings has been to pursue youth, remorselessly it seemed in the end, testing Sherwood’s credentials as a developer of young footballers to the limit. Lerner has been burned before, and looking around a squad that included the likes of Joe Cole, Philippe Senderos and Charles N’Zogbia he resolved never to be loaded down with the expensive, superannuated players that have been a feature of previous squads.

This summer Villa had a deal agreed with Aaron Lennon, later abandoned in keeping with policy for Adama Traore’s £7 million move from Barcelona. The 19-year-old might yet set the league alight but he could also be playing for a Championship club next season if Villa do not improve quickly. Moves for Esteban Cambiasso, Asmir Begovic, Tom Cleverley and Victor Moses also fell by the wayside as the club pursued their youth-first policy.

 

 

 

Sherwood must accept that he signed up for this ride and having ceded ultimate control of player transfer at the point he was best-placed to demand it – the moment before he signed his contract – will just have to do his best. Yet there will be only one casualty if Villa’s decline continues and the next manager will also be obliged to work with a group of players bought with 2017 in mind, rather than Saturday afternoon at Stamford Bridge.

There is undoubtedly a place in modern football for analysts who can pick their way through the great scree slopes of data now available on the elite game. All successful Premier League clubs are required to cast their net wide for players, with a network of scouts who work to standardised objectives and procedures rather than a proverbial finger in the wind. Yet when it works best, like Southampton, the recruitment team provides Ronald Koeman with a list of options to fill a position, and he makes the final decision.

Without that safety net, mistakes can be made. Of the 13 players who arrived at Villa this summer, on a net spend of around £7 million, it has been Jordan Veretout, a 22-year-old midfielder signed from Nantes for £8 million, who has looked the furthest off the pace. Many of the others remain works in progress.

There is great potential at Villa, not least with Jack Grealish, the 20-year-old homegrown midfielder and, beyond him, the 17-year-olds Andre Green and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy, the latter of whom has already made his Premier League debut. Lose on Saturday and the likelihood of Sherwood being around to see those three flourish will be that much reduced, although you would not bet against those in the recruitment department emerging unscathed.

 

Alot of detail about players he wanted to sign and whole article could have been written by Tim himself its so damning on the club.I'd argue they Ayew ( Tim's buy according to Greg Evans of the Mail and the highest priced signing ) looks the most off the pace. 

[useless]

Seems to be so much propaganda about in support of Sherwood. I think once we bring in a decent manager all this talk of the summer signings not being good enough, will quickly look pretty silly.

[Dodgyknees]

Tim still leaking to the press then.

Don't worry, he takes full responsibility.

[andym]

all these stories coming out attempting to mitigate sherwoods performance are no surprise, he learnt from Redknapp, who is the king of bullshit and using his media mates to his advantage.  

[Marka Ragnos]

Seems to be so much propaganda about in support of Sherwood. I think once we bring in a decent manager all this talk of the summer signings not being good enough, will quickly look pretty silly.

You're talking nonsense. That article isn't slanted either way. 

Tim still leaking to the press then.

Don't worry, he takes full responsibility.

You don't know how the press works, apparently. This is an analysis piece. I don't see a single freshly reported fact. Again with the Anti-Sherwood frenzy! 

[Marka Ragnos]

all these stories coming out attempting to mitigate sherwoods performance are no surprise, he learnt from Redknapp, who is the king of bullshit and using his media mates to his advantage.  

You have no idea what you're talking about;. That's not how it works. You give people like 'Arry and Sherwood way too much credit. 

[AshVilla]

Tim "Deep Throat" sherwood

Enough of the whistleblowing ffs just leave

Edited October 14, 2015 by AshVilla