The Tim Sherwood Thread

[HanoiVillan]

He gave me the FA Cup Semi Final and kept us up when we were doomed.

Doomed!!!! We were in the bottom 3 on goal difference and two points off 14th place. Hardly doomed.  He's left us in a far worse position than the one he took over.

That's true, but we hadn't won for months with Lambert, were barely scoring and the players had visibly given up. None of those things are visible simply by looking at the league table. 

Tim has left us in possibly an even worse position, but both have left the club in an absolute state. I can't wait for them to both be ancient history. 

I don't believe he's left us in a worse state at all. We are on a nightmare run, but in pretty much all games we played we have been in with a shout and they have generally been lost because a stupid mistake. We havbn't been outclassed our outplayed by anyone really, and while its clear confidence is low because of results, the team is still playing decent football at times. Christ we are scoring a few goals at least.

Under Lambert we couldn't even create a chance, nevermind score a goal. The game at Hull was one of our worst performances ever. Its not comparable to the Cup Final, because Hull are not Arsenal.

Also - we have loads more games between now and the end of January, so its entirely plausible that we might be out of the bottom 3 by then.

Bottom line, more than 25% of the season gone and we're cut adrift at the bottom of the table, already two games from safety. You can take your 'being in with a shout' and 'not being outclassed by anyone really' and see how much you get for them. Points are what matters. 

[andym]

agreed we haven't been outplayed, and we have dropped points due to stupid mistakes - but alot of those mistakes were made by Sherwood.

He messed up with substitutions again against Swansea, failing to take off Richardson who was getting completely exposed as the game went on, and bringing on Amavi, who has the pace to deal with the sub Swansea brought on. But no Sherwood was happy to do nothing and then watch as the winning goal came down Richardsons side. He then moaned about players running out of steam ignoring that he failed to use all his subs.

He wont manage in the premier league again, i expect to see him as one of the reserve soccer special pundits on sky, covering the lower league and cup games.

 

[markavfc40]

Read the statement and fair play to him. I guess I was fortunate in that unlike a fair few us I didn't dislike the guy before he arrived due to his personality. In fact I found his positive arrogant attitude quite refreshing and that positivity certainly contributed to us getting enough results to stay up last season and the added bonus of getting to the final.

This season has been a disaster results wise without any terrible performances, we have been in every game, and not been battered, but bottom line is it wasn't good enough and he rightly had to go. I believe he did his best but much like those that have recently gone before him his best wasn't good enough although, again like his predecessors, he wasn't helped by those above him. I wish him well.

Edited October 26, 2015 by markavfc40

[Xela]

No chance. Lambert and mcLeish are managers. Sherwood isn't even that. He's a chancer. If I had to have one of those three back now Sherwood would be bottom of the list.

I can't see past the last few months of his reign when I think of Lambert. The worst football I have ever seen in my life. I hated us as a club during that time and that's why he'll always be the worst manager in my eyes.

Overall though, what 3 poor managers! Jeez, we must have run over a lot of black cats in a previous existence 

[Xela]

I also heard the Paul Mortimer interview, quite by chance as I usually never have Talkshite on in the car (or anywhere).

I thought it strange he referred to Villa as "we" and "us" like he was a club legend. He was pants and BFR soon shipped him out.

Oh and his comments were rubbish too.

 

paul mortimer? i saw the original post and assumed it was dennis

who the **** is paul mortimer?

Lazy left winger purchased by Big Ron. Played about 10 games, scored once and was sold. The N'zogbia of his time!

[Stevo985]

No chance. Lambert and mcLeish are managers. Sherwood isn't even that. He's a chancer. If I had to have one of those three back now Sherwood would be bottom of the list.

I can't see past the last few months of his reign when I think of Lambert. The worst football I have ever seen in my life. I hated us as a club during that time and that's why he'll always be the worst manager in my eyes.

Overall though, what 3 poor managers! Jeez, we must have run over a lot of black cats in a previous existence 

The football this season has been as bad as anything Lambert served up.

Lambert was a crap manager. But the mere fact he actually is a manager makes him better than Sherwood. Sherwood is like a competition winner.

[Xela]

I agree the football has been shit this year, but we occasionally look threatening and do score the odd goal. That spell last season we weren't even doing what. It made me want to weep!

I pray the next manager is competent

 

[GeordieVillan]

He gave me the FA Cup Semi Final and kept us up when we were doomed.

Doomed!!!! We were in the bottom 3 on goal difference and two points off 14th place. Hardly doomed.  He's left us in a far worse position than the one he took over.

That's true, but we hadn't won for months with Lambert, were barely scoring and the players had visibly given up. None of those things are visible simply by looking at the league table. 

Tim has left us in possibly an even worse position, but both have left the club in an absolute state. I can't wait for them to both be ancient history. 

I don't believe he's left us in a worse state at all. We are on a nightmare run, but in pretty much all games we played we have been in with a shout and they have generally been lost because a stupid mistake. We havbn't been outclassed our outplayed by anyone really, and while its clear confidence is low because of results, the team is still playing decent football at times. Christ we are scoring a few goals at least.

Under Lambert we couldn't even create a chance, nevermind score a goal. The game at Hull was one of our worst performances ever. Its not comparable to the Cup Final, because Hull are not Arsenal.

Also - we have loads more games between now and the end of January, so its entirely plausible that we might be out of the bottom 3 by then.

Bottom line, more than 25% of the season gone and we're cut adrift at the bottom of the table, already two games from safety. You can take your 'being in with a shout' and 'not being outclassed by anyone really' and see how much you get for them. Points are what matters. 

And when Lambert left more than 66% of the season was gone and we were 2 points adrift. -1 game from safety.

 If your argument is that if Sherwood had stayed until February then we would have been in worse position now than when he took over, then yes you are possibly right. But I would much rather be where we are now and looking for a new manager, than where we were when Lambert left.

If we make a decent appointment now, we have the makings of a team that can finish 10th-15th.

[HanoiVillan]

He gave me the FA Cup Semi Final and kept us up when we were doomed.

Doomed!!!! We were in the bottom 3 on goal difference and two points off 14th place. Hardly doomed.  He's left us in a far worse position than the one he took over.

That's true, but we hadn't won for months with Lambert, were barely scoring and the players had visibly given up. None of those things are visible simply by looking at the league table. 

Tim has left us in possibly an even worse position, but both have left the club in an absolute state. I can't wait for them to both be ancient history. 

I don't believe he's left us in a worse state at all. We are on a nightmare run, but in pretty much all games we played we have been in with a shout and they have generally been lost because a stupid mistake. We havbn't been outclassed our outplayed by anyone really, and while its clear confidence is low because of results, the team is still playing decent football at times. Christ we are scoring a few goals at least.

Under Lambert we couldn't even create a chance, nevermind score a goal. The game at Hull was one of our worst performances ever. Its not comparable to the Cup Final, because Hull are not Arsenal.

Also - we have loads more games between now and the end of January, so its entirely plausible that we might be out of the bottom 3 by then.

Bottom line, more than 25% of the season gone and we're cut adrift at the bottom of the table, already two games from safety. You can take your 'being in with a shout' and 'not being outclassed by anyone really' and see how much you get for them. Points are what matters. 

And when Lambert left more than 66% of the season was gone and we were 2 points adrift. -1 game from safety.

 If your argument is that if Sherwood had stayed until February then we would have been in worse position now than when he took over, then yes you are possibly right. But I would much rather be where we are now and looking for a new manager, than where we were when Lambert left.

If we make a decent appointment now, we have the makings of a team that can finish 10th-15th.

I appreciate this discussion is academic really. My point is they were roughly equally shit. I mean, yes, it is better (in some ways) that we have more time to get the points we need (although I doubt the points-per-game required are that different) but the reason Sherwood's successor has more time is because Sherwood failed so rapidly. It's not a recommendation for him.

[TRO]

I don't know why there is so much soul searching for the next manager.

pick one at random and give him a few games to get a win

failing that

sack him.....we will get it right eventually.

[StefanAVFC]

I don't know why there is so much soul searching for the next manager.

pick one at random and give him a few games to get a win

failing that

sack him.....we will get it right eventually.

So much bitterness. Wow.

[useless]

I don't know why people are praising him for his statement,. He's hardly going to come out and slate the club.

[Zatman]

No chance. Lambert and mcLeish are managers. Sherwood isn't even that. He's a chancer. If I had to have one of those three back now Sherwood would be bottom of the list.

Im only judging them on the job they did at Villa. Sherwood was better than both of them and certainly played better football

[Stevo985]

Disagree. The football this season has been as bad as anything those two served up. Like I said, the only thing that has saved Sherwood is that we pulled the plug so soon.

[sharkyvilla]

I don't know why people are praising him for his statement,. He's hardly going to come out and slate the club.

it's probably an identikit LMA statement that they change as appropriate for any manager and club.  I can assure you we will hear exactly what he thinks in due course, I just hope he's not on the football I subscribe to on TV.

[DCJonah]

I don't know why people are praising him for his statement,. He's hardly going to come out and slate the club.

Didn't you say you nearly cried at Lambert's statement?

[DCJonah]

Disagree. The football this season has been as bad as anything those two served up. Like I said, the only thing that has saved Sherwood is that we pulled the plug so soon.

 

It's all about opinions but I disagree. I don't think the way we've played this season is as bad as the end of Lambert's spell or with McLeish. At the start of this season we were the better team for most of the match and that Swansea performance was miles better than Lambert's last game. But both ended in losses so no difference in what we got for both of them as manager.

I'd also say city away, spurs away and Liverpool in the semi were miles better than what Lambert finished with as well. 

Edited October 26, 2015 by DCJonah

[useless]

I don't know why people are praising him for his statement,. He's hardly going to come out and slate the club.

Didn't you say you nearly cried at Lambert's statement?

Lambert's statement was actually quite moving and you could feel his sincerity in his choice of words.

By the way my saying that I don't know why people are praising Sherwood based on his statement wasn't meant to be a slight on him. Just that it was pretty generic and what else is he going to say. 

Edited October 26, 2015 by useless

[Arj Guy]

I don't know why people are praising him for his statement,. He's hardly going to come out and slate the club.

Didn't you say you nearly cried at Lambert's statement?

Lambert's statement was actually quite moving and you could feel his sincerity in his choice of words.

By the way my saying that I don't know why people are praising Sherwood based on his statement wasn't meant to be a slight on him. Just that it was pretty generic and what else is he going to say. 

I agree. Lambert's statement was completely different to Sherwood's

Edited October 26, 2015 by Arj Guy

[tarjei]

http://www.football365.com/news/proper-football-men-can-be-sht-too

Proper Football Men can be sh*t too…

Date published: Monday 26th October 2015 10:57

And so another Proper Football Man bites the dust, as Tim Sherwood walks away from Aston Villa and back into a 1970s episode of the Sweeney involving a stolen Ford Capri, smoking in bed and a fight in an abandoned warehouse full of empty cardboard boxes.

Timothy was the original inspiration for my PFM idea, back when Jamie Redknapp was pushing him on live TV to get the Spurs job. We were invited to believe Timbo was deserving of that gig because he was a “proper football man” as though we would all know what that meant, and as though this in itself was an all-encompassing qualification for one of football’s big jobs.

Since then, I’ve worked PFM (via the weekly Footy on TV column) into a whole concept which embraces, not just football, but everything else about life. Fiercely anti-intellectual, it is slightly xenophobic, a little paranoid it is being done down, it over-rates itself, it can be a bit nasty and it laughs over-loudly in the face of anything, or anyone, sensitive or nuanced. And that’s just for starters.

Sherwood is great fun for the Premier League soap opera, but we shouldn’t weep for him too long because he will be coming to a sofa on our TV very soon as a pundit, I’m sure. He will do his geezer gurn for the camera, squeeze a leg and be vaunted as a prince amongst men who was done down by a foreign owner, rubbish foreign players and faceless men who bought all them players he didn’t want. And he’ll also, according to the Birmingham Mail, trouser £2 million as pay-off. That is money for nothing, even if it is not chicks for free…though, for all I know, it may well be that too. Yet you can be sure that he will be painted as a victim in some quarters and talked of, fundamentally incorrectly, on every level,  as ‘a good young English manager’.

And many of us will look on, slack-jawed in disbelief. Both self-referential and self-pitying (he claimed he was making himself ill in order to manage Villa) he gives the press ‘boys’ some good quotes. A lot of them like him and looking like you’ve woken up in a shopping trolley after night with Reidy on the shoe polish, turps and Brut 33 smoothies, makes for good press photos.

But let’s be honest. Tim isn’t any good, except as a comedy character. Let’s get this right, if Tim was foreign, he’d get kicked from pillar to post by the English media as a ridiculously under-qualified man who made a fool of himself on a weekly basis. I mean, they do that to Manuel Pellegrini and he’s actually won things and is top of the league.

Yet the PFM paranoia that the British manager is being discriminated against goes on, completely against the facts, facts which we highlighted here on the site last week. The British manager is not being discriminated against. He has had and he continues to have, lots of opportunities at all levels, high and low and everywhere in between. The leagues are stuffed full of British managers.

For some reason, by and large, the punditocracy can rarely bring itself, except in extremis, to say a British manager is doing a poor job. Those who are part of the PFM group-think, prefer a ceaseless pretence that bad results are due to the foreign owner, the foreign players, the player recruitment committee, or basically anyone who isn’t the manager.

Rarely a week goes by without some august British ex-player or manager bemoaning the lot of the indigenous manager. In their universe, the honest Brit is being elbowed out of management by the man who the owners see as a sexy foreign. That word, ‘sexy’ is actually used, perhaps revealing more of what the speaker thinks, than those they are critiquing. Clubs are forever, in that awful Glenn Hoddle phrase ‘going foreign’, as though foreign is all the same thing. Everything not British is essentially interchangeable to the PFM.

It’s a bizarre hypnosis, and the people who promote and publish this guff really need to take a hard look at themselves. Weirdly, it isn’t just one or two oddballs, it is probably the majority of British media at one time or another, so it must be judged as playing to the masses.

Even this weekend, if you watched Sunday Supplement you’d have seen John Richardson (Ricco, to ‘the boys’) going on about how ridiculous it was that Tim was under pressure and that he hadn’t even bought any of the rubbish players. Other less blinkered contributors pointed out that there’s no excusing losing so many games and, oh, he had almost certainly wanted quite a lot of the summer signings, especially the English ones. You know, those English ones who are also playing rubbish under Sherwood. He didn’t seem convinced.

It seems as though there is a strain of opinion which wants to always excuse the sh*t Brit and always sees the non-British involvement in our football as some sort of invasion or denial of their human rights. While there’s obviously an audience for this xenophobic garbage, it’s time that they were held to account for this total nonsense.

I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking of football as a global culture, largely because it is. Thus it is a many-hued palette from which to paint. It matters not the birthplace of the participants, only what they bring to our enjoyment. Right?

No. not right. The wide xenophobic streak which runs through our culture can barely contain itself in seeing discrimination at every turn and it reacts very negatively when this is pointed out to them, perhaps by saying how much they admire at least one foreign manager or player. Yeah, Bergkamp, he was good.

It needs saying loud and proud that many of us don’t care about nationality of player, nor of managers, not because we’re all frilly-pantied liberal bed wetters, but because we gain nothing by being like that. We don’t think Brits ‘deserve more time’ than a foreign, any more than we think the term ‘good young English manager’ should be applied to anyone who is already 46. We look first at what the man brings, not where he’s from. We’re not bothered if our clubs are managed by someone who, in a classic PFM term, ‘knows the club, inside out’ because we know those are meaningless words which bear no scrutiny, but which are trotted as though it is insider-only wisdom.

Sherwood did a poor job, not because he’s British, not because of foreign owners, not because of foreign players, but primarily because he’s Sherwood, and, let us never forget, Sherwood is a proper football man.