The peculliar case of benjam......er Tim Sherwood

Firstly can I state for the record that i believe it is too early to be demanding Tim Sherwood’s head on a stake and I’m personally of the belief that if he survives this season and keeps us up then he could go on to do very well with us, however on the flip side I feel there is every chance that he could sadly take us down also. It’s going to be a fine margin again. But for now i feel Sherwood needs time.

Anyway I wanted to just analyze the situation we find ourselves in yet again. Last season Sherwood came blustering into Villa park like the second coming of John Gregory. Here we had a guy not afraid to speak his mind he seemed from his short spell at Spurs to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk. How refreshing from what we had been used to over the few years previous. There was a new found confidence in the players and it was clear that Sherwood oozed positivity. The results were hit and miss however and there wasn’t really that immediate impact on the pitch that some teams got from a new manager coming in. That being said however he kept us up when all seemed lost after hull. The highlight was the seemingly mastermind lesson he gave at Wembley in dispatching Liverpool. As fans we had seemingly good reason to be excited! However since then things have been patchy to poor at best. Delph, Benteke and Cleverley all sought pastures new and money was made available to re invest from sales with a little on top. Tim signed his charges and has looked as though he has the making of a good squad or at least a promising one. Out have gone the dead wood bar Gabby and in has come the French revolution.

Pre season was less than spectacular but as were always told “ its about fitness not results” i find that bizarre as the opposition are in the same boat and when they are beating you it’s odd and a good indicator that the opposition is in better shape than yourselves. That’s just my personal view on it though. Anyhow onto the problems i’m seeing manifested and some of the reasons why. First issue is that despite the claim “ were looking for goals from other areas of the pitch” we haven’t replaced Benteke. Rudy is ok and has a few goals to his name however he is limited and i feel you have to play to his strengths to get the best out of him. Neat little link up work will not get you goals with a centre forward who is quite static and not a fox in the box. He needs traditional wingers whipping in balls which were not set up to be. Amavi to his credit has put in fantastic balls and Rudy has reaped the rewards. Players like Jack and Gil are/will pick out intelligent runs....sadly Rudy isn’t that player. Ayew has been unspectacular and to be fair may or may not succeed at Villa park. He’s not an 18yr old and has only had one average season in France so he was always a risk. Sherwood basically had no plan B for when Adebayor didn’t get a sign from God and as such were in a poorer state upfront due to these reasons. Perhaps Sherwood could of used the Ayew and Rudy money combined to of bought a more lethal all round forward?? I’m not sure, but it was poor planning to have no backup to big Ade. That aside there have been some potentially exciting signings made and on the whole the business in the summer was excellent. So why are we floundering?? Is it time for the team to gel that is a problem? Well there will be some of that to an extent but the over riding factor is Sherwood himself.

His tactics have been bizarre (spurs fans warned us in droves), team selections predictable in the sense that as Lambert did, he is relying on certain players that could maybe do with being given a first team rest. Playing strikers as wingers is a sin for me but one his predecessors also chose to do. Westwood is the marmite player of the team along with Gabby. Westwood retains the ball which is great but we saw Lamberts team retain the ball and they did nothing with it. He isn’t a DM, his set pieces are genuinely awful and nor is he creative which leaves you asking the question....whats he offering other than some nice sideway passing. Gabby has survived every manager to date and has Gerrard Houlliers health issues to thank for still being at Villa Park. But Tim continues to stick by them despite the fact that they maybe don’t suit the tactic or position they are being played in. Gabby isn’t a winger and nor is Westood a DM yet both are played in these positions a lot. Has he lost faith in his signings already and does he truly believe some of the players who were part of the previous mess are so much better than players he’s signed? Sherwood has been unlucky with injury including his own hamstring however when everybody is pretty much fit it seems he doesn’t know who to pick. Some weeks he sets up with the playmaker’s but then sticks a big target man in the middle. Other times he goes for more width and plays gabby or Sinclair as the central striker and just sets us up to hit long balls to them. It’s just seemingly that he has no idea what combination of player and tactic works. Veretout (who i think will be class) and Ayew who as i said earlier i have doubts about but that aside both put in a good show against blues and then found themselves relegated to the bench again. Now it’s my feeling that players need two things. 1 being confidence and 2 being a run in the team. The Liverpool game would of been ideal to continue and build on the promising mid week showing but Tim felt otherwise seemingly. It feels at the minute as though each week he is grasping at straws with selections and wrong substitutions or in some cases no substitutions. We’ve had things like him claiming the poor first half performance against blues was all part of the master plan! When in reality his tactics were wrong again, however he made the choices and rectified it which is how he should of put it. There’s no harm in admitting you were wrong...especially when everybody else can see it. On that note though i give him credit as that is what a good manager needs to do when the game isn’t going to plan. Another statement which may well come back to haunt him was last season when he said under his charge we wouldn’t find ourselves in the relegation battles ever again. It’s very early but if results keep going this way then he will have a hard job to keep that promise.

The really worrying thing is that the attacking displays weve seen and he was renowned for in that brief spurs spell have basically dissipated to nervousness in selections and tactics and its only when behind that he seems to try to rectify the situations we find ourselves in. Sadly that is maybe pointing to a lack of confidence in his own ability? Or just an inability to out think the opposition manager?? Being reactory is good but not to the point that it’s your only brief. If he could just transfer that Media Charisma into confidence in his own ability then we would be looking far prettier right now. The more I look at it I feel that perhaps anybody that wasn’t Lambert would of kept us up and perhaps it was simply any man at right time. The Liverpool performance in that semi is seeming more an anomaly than a thing of the future but here’s the kicker....He did it once so can do it again. He’s just got to figure out a style and team and nail it. Whilst its Rudy then i’d say we need wingers, if its say Ayew then i think we need to go through the middle with the likes of jack and Gil. He just needs to stop shoe horning players in for the sake of it and then leaving others out who could be more beneficial. He is a baby in manager terms and learning on the job but the premier league is unforgiving and to be fair perhaps not the place to do your apprenticeship? He currently sends out a team to not attack but to not defend either (again a sign that he just doesn’t know what to do for the best) as a result we can’t outscore teams and nor can we stop them scoring.

I love the fact that he is Youth driven and that can only be a good thing in the long run, i love that he isn’t that boring guy every fan hates and that he clearly has bought in some good players. I love the fact he kept us up last season and i hope to see him break this spell and go on to be a very successful Villa manager but the concerns are there for all to see. Poor choices, poor approaches to games and the inability to say i cocked up will vastly shorten his tenure and the natives are already becoming restless in some quarters. I fear full on revolt again by November/December if the slide isn’t halted and it wont be pretty but i have faith or should i just say hope that he can turn it around. With every defeat i feel a little less confident but i refuse to join the Sherwood out brigade yet. If i could talk to Tim i’d say “ Pull yourself together Tim your teams tactics and systems reek of desperation and panic right now. look at your players and play a system that suits them don’t shoe horn them into a system just to have them on the pitch. You’re a confidence guy so pick yourself up, don’t sulk and be all down in the dumps, don’t go again but actually start again. Show us that you can walk the walk as well as talk the talk”

If only twitter allowed use of this many characters

Certainly a lot of characters there. Beauty of a forum is that it's so much easier to go into detail about issues, even have a bit of a rant.

Great first post and I think you sum things up really well. I agree that whilst there are some things that are worrying it's too early to be wanting Tim sacked. I particularly agree with your fourth paragraph. I was saying on our match thread that Tim seems to pick the players he sees as the best individuals or characters rather than thinking of a way to play and then picking the team to suit that. Much as I love both Gil and Grealish (probably my two favourite players at the moment) I'm not convinced that they'll fit well in the same team, but Tim has tried that (arguably it even worked spectacularly against Leicester in the first half but worked less well against Albion). I can easily imagine Sanchez, Westwood and Gana being great in training and impressing Tim more than Veretout but they don't work together as a midfield three as they all play so similarly and get in each other's way. A better system might use two of them and Veretout or maybe one of them, Veretout and Gil which will be less stifling to our creativity. I think another part of it is that both Gabby and Westwood are amongst our longer standing players and are strong characters so that contributes to Tim picking them. All of this is well and good but it might not necessarily result in the best team.

Anyway, welcome to the site!

Thanks Sandie! Yeah it was far more of a ramble than it was meant to be ha ha

Welcome Starbuck and thanks for an insightful first post. Your summing up of where Tim Sherwood and Villa are currently at is excellent. I can't find a word or thought to disagree with.

I find Sherwood an enjoyable media figure, knowing that some of what he says is tongue in cheek as he tries to create a higher profile for Villa. However, I find his team selections and "tactics" not only baffling but also inexplicable recently. I have a very real concern that he will persist with using the wrong players in the wrong system for long enough, to cause us terminal problems.

I hope Tim can sit down with his backroom team and agree a different plan for this group of player' specific talents and abilities. From what I've witnessed since the Southampton match last season, I honestly don't know whether he can do that. I do know that it has to be done, so either Tim does it, or we make a decision at an early enough stage of the season to make changes.

Villa is too important to allow one man's attempts to learn his trade on the job, to dictate our future membership of the Premier League. I'll say again, I really like 'Tim Sherwood the character and cheeky fella', but I love Villa more. Please get it right soon Tim.

Thank you very much, nice to see my ramblings are appreciated and I'm not being stoned to death ha ha

Starbuck19777 wrote:Thank you very much, nice to see my ramblings are appreciated and I'm not being stoned to death ha ha

With posts of this quality, you're an extremely welcome addition to the CABA family. Keep them coming.

Starbuck, finally haha!! I told you 140 characters just wasn't enough. Superb piece mate, can't disagree with any of it. Great first post, now stick around we need posters like you

I forgot my log in dude and as such needed a motivational moment to rectify it ha ha. Glad it's been liked and yes I may chip in more regularly now

Great!! Look forward to more muses of this quality. Feel free to speak a lot of nonsense too haha! I do, plus we have an Off Topic area with a variety of threads in it. So nonsense is also welcome

I've just been discussing the current Villa situation with one of my sons. We've talked at length about what we know about Villa under Sherwood's management. The brash and bouncing start, the fear of losing that set in prior to the last three games last season, the stuttering pre season and the seven games so far this season.

We've also discussed our expectations for our future under TS. Will Sherwood become a good manager when he gains experience? How long will it take him to reach an acceptable level of tactical expertise? Will he replace his current 'fear based" football with an expansive attacking style that is more suited to the players that we've just paid 52.5 million pounds for?

Obviously we don't know the answers to the questions that we've raised, but we agree that common sense tells us that Tim may need much more time to gain crucial experience than Aston Villa can allow. If this seems like an over reaction to our current situation, then it's not meant to be. It's an appraisal of where Tim Sherwood stands currently, and where he needs to get to before he can do a consistently effective job for us.

His demeanour in both pre and post match interviews indicate that he is feeling the crushing pressure of being Villa manager. His physical appearance demonstrates that he's working and worrying 24/7, so he can't put any more effort in than he already is. That does not bode well for his future or Villa's.

That's the worry yes, for all of the positives that Sherwood brings there are worrying signs creeping in that we saw with Lambert. More concerning is that these were things that we saw far later during his tenure. But the physical and mental toll seems to already be taking hold and the indecision in tactics. All things you expect from somebody who is maybe feeling the pressure

Excellent post Starbuck, neither a rant or rambling, just wish I had the patience to type such a long piece. I can't disagree with anything you say, and as I just said in the match thread, I think Sherwood will come good, and we wont be in a relegation fight, and no, we're not related

I find myself pretty much agreeing with all of the musings above!
great first post mate!

Thanks, liberty glad they were agreeable musings