the curious 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.

Anyway I wanted to just analyze the situation we find ourselves in 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”

You touch a lot of the aspects I like about Sherwood. He had that ego, that positivity, that directness I really like, and he reminded me about JG.

I enjoyed the summer. It was a nice change to sign players like Gueye and Traore instead of Westwood and Tonev. However I just can't understand why he has such basic lack of tactical knowledge. He has been a professional footballer and it honestly seems like he doesn't have a fucking clue. It's a cliche, but I truly believe I would do better.
I can't for my life understand how hard it can be to do the subs every single Villa fan in the world can see is needed, or stick to the right 433 based on form and performances. I'm pretty much done with Sherwood now simply because I don't think it will get better. He looks like a complete amateur. If we win a couple over the next two weeks I might reconsider, but lets be honest, we won't.

Joppe84 wrote:You touch a lot of the aspects I like about Sherwood. He had that ego, that positivity, that directness I really like, and he reminded me about JG.

I enjoyed the summer. It was a nice change to sign players like Gueye and Traore instead of Westwood and Tonev. However I just can't understand why he has such basic lack of tactical knowledge. He has been a professional footballer and it honestly seems like he doesn't have a fucking clue. It's a cliche, but I truly believe I would do better.
I can't for my life understand how hard it can be to do the subs every single Villa fan in the world can see is needed, or stick to the right 433 based on form and performances. I'm pretty much done with Sherwood now simply because I don't think it will get better. He looks like a complete amateur. If we win a couple over the next two weeks I might reconsider, but lets be honest, we won't.

I agree. Again, like Lambert, the signings are good (except Ayew - bad karma) but tactics and substitutions at times inexplicable.

He needs a win and soon. If he gets it I'm not going to hold him back. The sample size of games he's had so far is still rather small.

Tim Sherwood on 20th March on the squad he inherited and bring Ng in new players wrote: “I’ve got faith. If we never change one player we wouldn’t be in the relegation zone. I don’t think it is always about spending money and throwing money at it.

Tim Sherwood on 25th May using someone else's shit team wrote:Relegated? You having a laugh!

Tim Sherwood on 27th September in the relegation zone using his own very decent team wrote:I said from the start it would be an uphill struggle. The club face a fight to stay in the Premier League

No way is this a relegation candidate team. No way. He's single handed lay turning players into donkeys, winning mentalities into losing ones and a team with a bit of flair into hoof-merchants.

"Benjamin Button" is about right.

There was a freshness and enthusiasm when he came in last season that might have been linked to fans drowning on Lamberts negativity grasping at straws and therefore TS got a lot more slack than is normal.
The warning signs were there though from early on with his bizarre treatment of Gil and his preference of NZogbia and Richardson as lb. These were overlooked when we started to win a few games and looked as though we were set up to have a go at teams.
I don't know if something went wrong internally in the camp but our season came to a juddering halt at Southampton in a spectacular collapse from which we never recovered. I'm not sure if it affected the manger more than the team as we have never set up gung ho or attacking since.
His in game management now seems (un)reactive and tentative. He has been out tacticed by Pardew Advocaat Rainieri and Rodgers over the last few weeks alone. A major worry here too is his lack of communication with Wilkins during matches. He seems to rely on Parks or Robson when discussing his changes. It's bizarre to me.
There is a stench of favouritism and stubbornness about his team selections and treatment of some players like Kozak for instance.
I'm rapidly losing hope that the downward graph in performances can be righted under this manager as he seems to be deflecting blame to the players and showing an inability to learn lessons.

Where does Wilkins sit during matches? Someone suggested recently that Sherwood distribute players in the stands to watch matches. I think Sherwood needs someone higher up in the stands who can tell him what's happening, and someone with tactical knowledge helping him out. If that's not Wilkins, for whatever reason, get in someone else.

We started against the Baggies with no new players other than Amavi, Lescott and Richards. I think this is similar to reverting to N'Zogbia and Richardson last year, Sherwood is turning to players with most PL experience and not trusting in his new signings. All about confidence. As, to a certain extent, is blaming players when you lose. When we scored yesterday the players didn't look happy at all, did they? No celebration for the first goal, no team bonding. The second goal produced some high fives. This isn't a team playing with confidence and confidence is mostly what Sherwood appeared to bring to the table last season.

I have to disagree with the OP's opinion on Westwood. I think he's better than Sanchez in that position. They shouldn't be playing at the same time, Westwood is more attacking minded (excluding free kicks) and we should start with him, Sanchez is better at breaking up play and tackling, and we should bring him on for Westwood when we need an enforcer to see out matches. It would be great to have a DM that does both, and can stay fit for a whole 90 minutes, but we don't, and subbing one for the other is the best of both worlds. Playing both wastes two positions and leaves us exposed when Sanchez gets tired after 60 or 70 minutes.

He's at the bench.

One of the problems we have is this... the players below were our bench yesterday.

17 Jordan Veretout
20 Adama Traoré
31 Mark Bunn
6 Ciaran Clark
7 Leandro Bacuna
19 Jordan Ayew
25 Carles Gil

All of these players I'd argue should be playing atm. I'm a bit unsure of Gil, but I'd have him over Sinclair any time. Sanchez shouldn't be playing either, nor Lescott for that matter.

Kinda hard to win matches when you leave 30 % of your best team on the bench ALL THE TIME.

Joppe84 wrote:He's at the bench.

One of the problems we have is this... the players below were our bench yesterday.

17 Jordan Veretout
20 Adama Traoré
31 Mark Bunn
6 Ciaran Clark
7 Leandro Bacuna
19 Jordan Ayew
25 Carles Gil

All of these players I'd argue should be playing atm. I'm a bit unsure of Gil, but I'd have him over Sinclair any time. Sanchez shouldn't be playing either, nor Lescott for that matter.

Kinda hard to win matches when you leave 30 % of your best team on the bench ALL THE TIME.

Well, if he's not getting consulted get him in the stands telling Sherwood what's what! It won't take more than a couple of games to find out if he's talking sense the manager has to listen to.

Not only leaving out the best players but knocking their confidence by giving their positions to players playing out of position.

Sherwood is just not learning from his mistakes, if anything he is compounding earlier mistakes. After tuesdays ridiculous claim of tactical genius in getting booed off at halftime he goes on to drop two players who helped turn the tide in Ayew and Veretout. This after stating on tuesday night that Ayew was a confidence player who would need more game time to keep the confidence growing.......... so drops him the very next game! Sanchez and Westwood as a pairing simply doesn't work, never has and never will. Clark and Richards looked much better 2nd half against Birmingham and so Sherwood drops Clark and reinstates Lescott for no good reason? Sherwood is talking rubbish lately and making lots of questionable selection and tactical decisions. For me he's got until the end of october, Villa need to have shown a marked improvement in the capability to get a result by then or Sherwood has to be relieved of his duties. Tom Fox needs to be looking now at alternatives and be ruthless if needs be in a few games time. We're getting beaten by anyone and everyone and it cannot continue, the promise some young players have shown can soon be lost with a sustained poor period and manager.