The Tim Sherwood Thread

[HanoiVillan]

I'm just wondering how anyone would know what a meeting involving Randy was about considering how secretive he is, and Tim wasn't in attendance.  I think a gutless performance on Saturday would be enough and Rodgers will be in by Tuesday.

where is mendi when we need him?

Having lunch with Randy at his restaurant. 

EDIT: Can someone briefly explain who Nikki Keye is? Before my time. 

Edited October 15, 2015 by HanoiVillan

[Marka Ragnos]

Krulak is an official voice of the club that can say, "We're behind our man." but he's distanced enough from the club so that Fox and Lerner can still sack him on Saturday night if they feel like it. 

All of the recent press seems to me to be saying dead man walking.

 

Yup. Playing the role of "insider" but acting as flack. 

[Woody1000]

The more I think about it, the more I want Sherwood sacked assuming that we lose on Saturday.

That isn't meant to sound defeatist, Chelsea have had an awful start to the season, but I think we'd all agree that we have a history of helping teams end bad runs - if you're down on your luck, come and see the Villa.....

Hopefully we can have a new manager in for Swansea, and a little bit of 'new manager bounce' to go with it with 4 difficult games to come for us.

I think Moyes is the man we need, knows the league and has a point to prove. One thing for sure, he'd sort our defence out! Richards would flourish under him imo. Whether he'd want the job is another thing, but he'd be my no1 choice.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Woody1000

[KSV]

so now team news is being leaked with Gil and Grealish to start.

He is going back to his attacking principles. Why did he change it in the first place?? I thought we did well in the first 3-4 games despite the losses.. i figured it would come good as we actually played well.. after Leicester his game plan became defensive.

So he decides to bring in Gil and Grealish against the champions away... but left them out against Stoke at home. Madness. I just cant see the logic in what he does half the time.

[CrackpotForeigner]

Setting them up to fail maybe, although you could argue Gil's size counted against him v Stoke.

[bose]

Another mate, Chris Sutton, defending him on the BBC website. He says it's Ok to be cocky as long as you make sense. Well Tim doesn't make a whole lot of sense. At least the media are realising that he's under a lot of pressure.

[KSV]

Setting them up to fail maybe, although you could argue Gil's size counted against him v Stoke.

their not the same team they were under Pulis. There was so much space in that match.

[Straggler]

You are definitely setting them up to fail if you leak team news way ahead of the game. If the team is set out as described in the telegraph someone needs firing for that alone.

[StefanAVFC]

Another mate, Chris Sutton, defending him on the BBC website. He says it's Ok to be cocky as long as you make sense. Well Tim doesn't make a whole lot of sense. At least the media are realising that he's under a lot of pressure.

here's the article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34541803?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Why Aston Villa should stick with "cocky" Tim Sherwood

By Chris SuttonMOTD pundit and former Aston Villa striker

There is a lot of talk that Tim Sherwood is close to being sacked by Aston Villa but I cannot understand why they would even contemplate getting rid of him at this stage of the season.

If he does become the next Premier League manager to lose his job, it would not just be unfair, it would be absolutely ridiculous.

'Sherwood was always manager material'

Sherwood played with Sutton at Blackburn between 1994 and 1999

I cleaned Tim's boots when I was an apprentice at Norwich in the late 1980s, and he was the captain at Blackburn Rovers when we won the Premier League together in 1995.

Of course I am not just backing him to succeed at Villa because I used to play with him - the reason is that, since the earliest days of my career, I have always seen him as manager material.

When I was a teenager I looked up to him because I liked the way he went about things and how he dealt with me and other people. Even though he was a young man then too, the other players all thought the same.

Character is a bit of a buzzword these days, but as a player I looked around for team-mates who had the ability to handle pressure and Tim was always one of them.

At 46, he is a relatively young manager now, certainly in terms of experience, but you have to remember he was quite a young captain at Blackburn too - he was 26 when we were champions.

We had some pretty big-hitters in terms of personalities in that dressing room, the likes of Alan Shearer, David Batty, Tim Flowers and Colin Hendry.

They were never afraid to have their say but, if you speak to them, they will all tell you they admired Tim not just for what he brought to the team as a player but also his contribution to the club's success as captain.

Sutton looks on as Alan Shearer and Tim Sherwood celebrate a goal in Blackburn's win over Villa in 1994

'It's OK to be cocky as long as you make sense'

For Tim to be skipper ahead of, say, Shearer shows you what the Blackburn boss Kenny Dalglish thought of him too.

He always had the leadership qualities you need as a manager and, on top of that, I always thought he was extremely knowledgeable about the game.

He comes across as confident or even cocky in some respects, but in the dressing room it doesn't matter whether you are an introvert or an extrovert as long as what you are saying makes sense. Tim always did.

So it does not surprise me that, as a manager, he has got the best out of players who had been under-performing - like Emmanuel Adebayor at Spurs or Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph at Villa last season - because he has always had the ability to get people playing for him.

Adebayor was frozen out at Spurs until Sherwood took charge in November 2013, then scored 14 goals in 24 games when he was manager

At times he might say things that players don't like - because he tells the truth. That ruffles a few feathers but I don't mind it, in fact he should be commended for it.

These days I hear a lot of people in football say things with no substance behind them, but Tim certainly is not like that - he can always back his opinions up.

'He is trying to build a new team'

Christian Benteke had scored two goals in 16 league games before Sherwood took charge of Villa last season. Under Sherwood, he scored 11 in 13, earning Villa 11 points - they stayed up by three points

Tim earned his right to have a proper crack at being Villa boss with the incredible job he did to keep them up after taking charge in February,when they were in desperate trouble with a dreadful scoring record.

Villa have been fighting relegation for a few years now under several different managers so this season was never going to be any different.

But, just eight games into the new campaign and at the first sign of adversity, Sherwood already appears to be under massive pressure.

You have to take into consideration that he lost his two best players over the summer in striker Benteke and midfielder Delph, who were both inspirational for him last season, and realise he is trying to build a new team with all the signings that Villa have made.

Villa's net spend over the summer was under £10m - and a lot of that went on young players with little or no Premier League experience.

They have plenty of potential, and also plenty of sell-on value which seems to be a big part of the club's thinking, but it is a gamble whether they work out for Villa now and that is Sherwood's problem.

I don't know who had the final say on each deal but from what I understand, Villa's head of recruitment Paddy Reilly and sporting director Hendrik Almstadt play a big part in the process.

You cannot blame Tim for the squad not being strong enough if it is not just down to him, but he is the one who is being criticised because Villa have not won since the opening day.

I get why the club's owner Randy Lerner might be getting twitchy because of the amount of money at stake if they go down, but the logical thing to do is to give Sherwood more time because he is an intelligent man who has already shown he can improve players - which is exactly what Villa need now.

Aston Villa's signings - summer 2015
Player	From	Age	Fee
Idrissa Gueye	Lille	26	£9m
Jordan Ayew	Lorient	24	£8.5m
Jordan Veretout	Nantes	22	£8m
Jordan Amavi	Nice	21	£7.7m
Adama Traore	Barcelona	19	£7m
Rudy Gestede	Blackburn	27	£6m
Scott Sinclair	Man City	26	£2.5m
Joleon Lescott	Man City	33	£2m
Jose Angel Crespo	Bologna	28	£550k
Matija Sarkic	Anderlecht	18	Unknown
Micah Richards	Man City	27	Free
Mark Bunn	Norwich	30	Free
Tiago Ilori	Liverpool	22	Loan

'Trying to find the right balance in attack and defence'

Gestede has scored four goals in five starts for Villa since his £6m summer move from Blackburn

Sherwood has chopped and changed his team and formation a lot so far, but that is only because he is trying to find the right balance between attack and defence while he beds those new signings in and finds a system that works with the players he has got.

The choices he has to make with his current forwards is an example of how difficult that is.

Like Benteke, Rudy Gestede has tremendous physical attributes and is as good as there is in the air in the Premier League.

In an effort to make the most of that, Sherwood has tried to get his full-backs forward to get crosses into the box - Jordan Amavi and Alan Hutton or Leandro Bacuna have all done that far more than any of Villa's midfielders.

But what Gestede doesn't have is the ability to link up play, or the pace to get behind defences. In that way, Benteke was much more of an all-round striker.

Sherwood can leave out Gestede and play Gabriel Agbonlahor or Jordan Ayew if he wants pace, but then he does not have that same physical presence up front, or any aerial threat.

Whoever he picks, he is missing something that Benteke provided on his own.

Because he is trying to find that balance between attack and defence, he cannot always play two up front to solve that problem, especially because he is also trying to fit Jack Grealish into his team as an attacking midfielder.

Aston Villa in the Premier League 2015-16
Player/position	Starts	Most open-play crosses
*One of Bacuna's starts came as a right-winger, when he made four of his crosses
Jordan Amavi (left-back)	8	35
Alan Hutton (right-back)	4	27
Leandro Bacuna (right-back)*	5	14
Ashley Westwood (midfield)	8	12
Scott Sinclair (midfield)	7	8

'Grealish has defensive responsibilities too'

Jack Grealish scores Villa's first goal against Leicester - they led 2-0, but lost 3-2

Grealish is a young player who has a lot of talent but picking him creates a different issue because winning games is not just down to what happens when you have got the ball.

However good Grealish is going forward, he does not always put in a shift going back the other way.

When you lose possession, you need to be compact and tight defensively and Villa have lacked that in the games I have seen, notably in their defeat by Leicester when they were hit on the counter-attack time and time again.

You really need defensive responsibility when you are in Villa's position near the bottom of the table.

That might be one of the reasons why Sherwood has apparently used this international break to try to get Grealish fitter.

After trying so many formations and line-ups, maybe we will see Sherwood sticking with just one in the next five or six games.

A settled system and some continuity is what Villa need at the moment. Tim knows that and, if he is given the chance, I am confident he will get it right.

It's just bollocks. 

'After trying so many formations and line-ups, maybe we will see Sherwood sticking with just one in the next five or six games.

A settled system and some continuity is what Villa need at the moment. Tim knows that and, if he is given the chance, I am confident he will get it right.'

Even though Tim has said that he'll just keep changing formation until we win.

**** the media.

[OutByEaster?]

Sutton thinks we lost against Leicester because Grealish doesn't defend?

The defences of Sherwood in the media are very interesting - lots of people talking about transfers, about balance and about players we've lost - these things don't make the job easy, but they're not actually why Sherwood is under pressure - he's not under pressure because he's still looking for balance in the team, he's under pressure because he's getting that search wrong, because he's consistently picking the wrong experiment for the wrong game and then discarding it when it might be right for the next one - he's not under pressure because he has a team that were open to the counter attack against Leicester, he's under pressure because he went out of his way to make that team significantly more susceptible to the counter attack through his substitutions.

The gist of all of the defences of Sherwood in the press seems to be that this job isn't easy - but in stating that truth, they're missing what a dreadful mess he's making of attempting it. 

Now, given that the hint is that Tim himself is helping these stories appear, that he's pulling in favours with journos and former teammates to protect his reputation and his career, I wonder if the gist of the defences of him we've seen in print even further underlines his own inability to see why he's under pressure - to look at his own mistakes and actually take responsibility for them rather than just say so - because the future of his career won't be about who his mates are, it'll be about whether he can learn.

Sherwood isn't under pressure because the job is hard; he's under pressure because he's doing it badly.

 

 

 

[Straggler]

An article from Sherwoods mate that criticises the players and the club but supports the manager. Funny that he claims to have the inside track on what training grealish is having over the international break too. I'd be surprised if he knew who Paddy Reilly was before ts called him.

All in all it is a poor analysis (ffs he is pinning the Leicester loss on Grealish) at best and at worst is more ts led propaganda. If only Tim could organise a team as well as he can organise a media campaign. 

 

[Kingman]

Top ten countdown, 10 weeks today and its Christmas Day.

[TrentVilla]

A few pages back someone was asking 'don't the views of pundits carry any weight!'?' well that article explains why most think not.

He is quite clearly too close to Sherwood to have an objective view and too far away from the club to actually have any insight whatsoever.

It is clear he hasn't watched our games, clear he doesn't know the issues and clear he hasn't read Sherwood's comments on needing to change the formation and line up if you don't win.

Pieces like this carry next to no weight with people who are actually watching the games, listening to the interviews and not mates with the manager.

The other issue with 'analysis' like this is that they fail to realise or acknowledge a fundamental point. If as they say Sherwood doesn't have overall control of the arrivals then that means his remit is picking the side, training the players and getting results.

Whatever anyone thinks of that system, and I'm personally not a fan, that is the job.

So whatever way you want to look at it Sherwood is failing in the job he has. You can't defend that by blaming the remit of the job itself.

Edited October 16, 2015 by TrentVilla

[KHV]

Another mate, Chris Sutton, defending him on the BBC website. He says it's Ok to be cocky as long as you make sense. Well Tim doesn't make a whole lot of sense. At least the media are realising that he's under a lot of pressure.

here's the article.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34541803?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Why Aston Villa should stick with "cocky" Tim Sherwood

By Chris SuttonMOTD pundit and former Aston Villa striker

There is a lot of talk that Tim Sherwood is close to being sacked by Aston Villa but I cannot understand why they would even contemplate getting rid of him at this stage of the season.

If he does become the next Premier League manager to lose his job, it would not just be unfair, it would be absolutely ridiculous.

'Sherwood was always manager material'

Sherwood played with Sutton at Blackburn between 1994 and 1999

I cleaned Tim's boots when I was an apprentice at Norwich in the late 1980s, and he was the captain at Blackburn Rovers when we won the Premier League together in 1995.

Of course I am not just backing him to succeed at Villa because I used to play with him - the reason is that, since the earliest days of my career, I have always seen him as manager material.

When I was a teenager I looked up to him because I liked the way he went about things and how he dealt with me and other people. Even though he was a young man then too, the other players all thought the same.

Character is a bit of a buzzword these days, but as a player I looked around for team-mates who had the ability to handle pressure and Tim was always one of them.

At 46, he is a relatively young manager now, certainly in terms of experience, but you have to remember he was quite a young captain at Blackburn too - he was 26 when we were champions.

We had some pretty big-hitters in terms of personalities in that dressing room, the likes of Alan Shearer, David Batty, Tim Flowers and Colin Hendry.

They were never afraid to have their say but, if you speak to them, they will all tell you they admired Tim not just for what he brought to the team as a player but also his contribution to the club's success as captain.

Sutton looks on as Alan Shearer and Tim Sherwood celebrate a goal in Blackburn's win over Villa in 1994

'It's OK to be cocky as long as you make sense'

For Tim to be skipper ahead of, say, Shearer shows you what the Blackburn boss Kenny Dalglish thought of him too.

He always had the leadership qualities you need as a manager and, on top of that, I always thought he was extremely knowledgeable about the game.

He comes across as confident or even cocky in some respects, but in the dressing room it doesn't matter whether you are an introvert or an extrovert as long as what you are saying makes sense. Tim always did.

So it does not surprise me that, as a manager, he has got the best out of players who had been under-performing - like Emmanuel Adebayor at Spurs or Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph at Villa last season - because he has always had the ability to get people playing for him.

Adebayor was frozen out at Spurs until Sherwood took charge in November 2013, then scored 14 goals in 24 games when he was manager

At times he might say things that players don't like - because he tells the truth. That ruffles a few feathers but I don't mind it, in fact he should be commended for it.

These days I hear a lot of people in football say things with no substance behind them, but Tim certainly is not like that - he can always back his opinions up.

'He is trying to build a new team'

Christian Benteke had scored two goals in 16 league games before Sherwood took charge of Villa last season. Under Sherwood, he scored 11 in 13, earning Villa 11 points - they stayed up by three points

Tim earned his right to have a proper crack at being Villa boss with the incredible job he did to keep them up after taking charge in February,when they were in desperate trouble with a dreadful scoring record.

Villa have been fighting relegation for a few years now under several different managers so this season was never going to be any different.

But, just eight games into the new campaign and at the first sign of adversity, Sherwood already appears to be under massive pressure.

You have to take into consideration that he lost his two best players over the summer in striker Benteke and midfielder Delph, who were both inspirational for him last season, and realise he is trying to build a new team with all the signings that Villa have made.

Villa's net spend over the summer was under £10m - and a lot of that went on young players with little or no Premier League experience.

They have plenty of potential, and also plenty of sell-on value which seems to be a big part of the club's thinking, but it is a gamble whether they work out for Villa now and that is Sherwood's problem.

I don't know who had the final say on each deal but from what I understand, Villa's head of recruitment Paddy Reilly and sporting director Hendrik Almstadt play a big part in the process.

You cannot blame Tim for the squad not being strong enough if it is not just down to him, but he is the one who is being criticised because Villa have not won since the opening day.

I get why the club's owner Randy Lerner might be getting twitchy because of the amount of money at stake if they go down, but the logical thing to do is to give Sherwood more time because he is an intelligent man who has already shown he can improve players - which is exactly what Villa need now.

Aston Villa's signings - summer 2015
Player	From	Age	Fee
Idrissa Gueye	Lille	26	£9m
Jordan Ayew	Lorient	24	£8.5m
Jordan Veretout	Nantes	22	£8m
Jordan Amavi	Nice	21	£7.7m
Adama Traore	Barcelona	19	£7m
Rudy Gestede	Blackburn	27	£6m
Scott Sinclair	Man City	26	£2.5m
Joleon Lescott	Man City	33	£2m
Jose Angel Crespo	Bologna	28	£550k
Matija Sarkic	Anderlecht	18	Unknown
Micah Richards	Man City	27	Free
Mark Bunn	Norwich	30	Free
Tiago Ilori	Liverpool	22	Loan

'Trying to find the right balance in attack and defence'

Gestede has scored four goals in five starts for Villa since his £6m summer move from Blackburn

Sherwood has chopped and changed his team and formation a lot so far, but that is only because he is trying to find the right balance between attack and defence while he beds those new signings in and finds a system that works with the players he has got.

The choices he has to make with his current forwards is an example of how difficult that is.

Like Benteke, Rudy Gestede has tremendous physical attributes and is as good as there is in the air in the Premier League.

In an effort to make the most of that, Sherwood has tried to get his full-backs forward to get crosses into the box - Jordan Amavi and Alan Hutton or Leandro Bacuna have all done that far more than any of Villa's midfielders.

But what Gestede doesn't have is the ability to link up play, or the pace to get behind defences. In that way, Benteke was much more of an all-round striker.

Sherwood can leave out Gestede and play Gabriel Agbonlahor or Jordan Ayew if he wants pace, but then he does not have that same physical presence up front, or any aerial threat.

Whoever he picks, he is missing something that Benteke provided on his own.

Because he is trying to find that balance between attack and defence, he cannot always play two up front to solve that problem, especially because he is also trying to fit Jack Grealish into his team as an attacking midfielder.

Aston Villa in the Premier League 2015-16
Player/position	Starts	Most open-play crosses
*One of Bacuna's starts came as a right-winger, when he made four of his crosses
Jordan Amavi (left-back)	8	35
Alan Hutton (right-back)	4	27
Leandro Bacuna (right-back)*	5	14
Ashley Westwood (midfield)	8	12
Scott Sinclair (midfield)	7	8

'Grealish has defensive responsibilities too'

Jack Grealish scores Villa's first goal against Leicester - they led 2-0, but lost 3-2

Grealish is a young player who has a lot of talent but picking him creates a different issue because winning games is not just down to what happens when you have got the ball.

However good Grealish is going forward, he does not always put in a shift going back the other way.

When you lose possession, you need to be compact and tight defensively and Villa have lacked that in the games I have seen, notably in their defeat by Leicester when they were hit on the counter-attack time and time again.

You really need defensive responsibility when you are in Villa's position near the bottom of the table.

That might be one of the reasons why Sherwood has apparently used this international break to try to get Grealish fitter.

After trying so many formations and line-ups, maybe we will see Sherwood sticking with just one in the next five or six games.

A settled system and some continuity is what Villa need at the moment. Tim knows that and, if he is given the chance, I am confident he will get it right.

It's just bollocks. 

'After trying so many formations and line-ups, maybe we will see Sherwood sticking with just one in the next five or six games.

A settled system and some continuity is what Villa need at the moment. Tim knows that and, if he is given the chance, I am confident he will get it right.'

Even though Tim has said that he'll just keep changing formation until we win.

**** the media.

Not too much wrong in that article IMO

[Demitri_C]

Cant disagree with any of that trent good post. I am sure Sherwood was explained the strategy when he took the job therefore its all excuses in my eyes

 

Mirror saying moyes is favourite if Sherwood is given the chop. Would definitely be my number one choice. He was superb at everton and i think we are as big a club as them just hugely under-achieving

 

 

[TrentVilla]

I'd be stunned if Moyes came here I really would. In fact I'd question his sanity.

[Stevo985]

I don't think that's a bad article, it's just that there's a lot wrong with it.

 

Plus there's a lot of statements such as

 but the logical thing to do is to give Sherwood more time because he is an intelligent man who has already shown he can improve players

That are stated as fact. But really aren't facts.

[OneNightInRotterdam]

We won't be getting Rodgers, his set to take a role as TV pundit At Bein sports. 

Moyes is the only one now. 

[ozvillafan]

Sutton. I forgot he played for us for a while.

I think his ability as a pundit mirrors his ability up front for us.

[Arj Guy]

intelligent?!! hahaha