It's not Sherwood!

[Monty]

I didn't say he was a simpleton! I said his tactics left a lot to be desired during a lot of his time at Spurs, but that he's obviously improved loads since then. Like you say, he's inexperienced so the learning curve will be quite steep for him, but so far he's following it well.

[not3bad]

It feels like fun again

This is what it's all about for me.

[Toronto Villa]

I didn't say he was a simpleton! I said his tactics left a lot to be desired during a lot of his time at Spurs, but that he's obviously improved loads since then. Like you say, he's inexperienced so the learning curve will be quite steep for him, but so far he's following it well.

It was a small sample of games and like with us he was given the opportunity in the middle of the season taking over from someone else's situation and mess. There's only so much he can do in that time. And quite frankly coming in with some complex system just so he can look smart might have had exactly the opposite effect than desired. Look at the mess LVG created at Man U at the start of the season with his system and tactics changes. And that on players that cost immense amounts of money who took the best part of a season to pick it up and even then it isn't what he first tried to implement. The fact that he now plays Rooney up front as opposed to deep midfield role isn't exactly a bit of tactical genius.

I'm not suggesting tactics are overrated. But I think they can be given the situation. More than tactics communication is more critical and getting players to do the simple things well can often counter even the best tactics. Before Sherwood our team couldn't even do the simple things, like pass and move, take throw ins, run off the ball, pass to each other. We did almost everything superbly on Sunday and last week at Spurs. Rodgers tried everything at the weekend, a so called tactician and he had nothing. Literally.

The truth is we beat Liverpool by not just having great desire but by having a simple but well thought out game plan that we executed perfectly. That is down to the manager and his staff and how they conveyed that message during the week. I heard an interview with Shay Given where he spoke of how they watched a lot of Liverpool games  and talked about exactly to break them down, but more importantly Sherwood concentrated on what we are good at and made sure everyone knew their place and roles. I think that is brilliant quite frankly and while it won't work all the time, and it won't win us the Champions League, it will get us going in the right direction and win us more games over a long period of time than we lose. Which ultimately is what is important. We will hit a wall only partly down to tactics but mainly down to players and our ability or desire to pay fees and wages which every team to a certain extent is governed by.

[Dante Lavelli]

I think it was on the Guardian Podcast where they observed that 'Tactics Tim' is very keen to name drop tactics he has used, almost as a way to demonstrate that he is more than just banter and motivation.  The bamboozling two number tens being the recent example.  I personally think the moniker 'Tactics Tim' will prove to be a good thing, a motivation - if he lacked it - to prove people wrong.

The motivation to improve, or acknowledge weaknesses, is something which MON lacked and as a result meant that he never changed.  On the flipside Lambert was too meek and flip-flopped between ideas trying to find a solution.  Tactics Tim currently seems to be brilliantly in that middle territory.

[SamTheMouse]

As Monty says, there are a lot of variables involved, and the tactical approach is just one. The fact that Sherwood's Villa beat Rodgers' Liverpool doesn't suddenly mean tactics are overrated, because the Dippers could just as easily put their defeat down to their players not performing as well as ours did on the day.

These things even themselves out over the longer term. Which is the appropriate timeframe for judging any manager on any criterion.

But fuck it, I'm liking Sherwood more and more. I never had a problem with his attitude anyway (we're all walking a little taller with his brash confidence), and the performances he's coaxing from the squad are superb, in the circumstances. If he continues in this vein, and keeps learning and improving, we could have a top, top manager on our hands.

And if he wins the Cup, he can do whatever the hell he likes.

[peter w]

Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood has only gone all bladdy tactical.

"I looked for a No 10. I looked at my options. He was my No 1," said Sherwood when extolling the virtues of young Jack Grealish earlier this month.

And what's better than one No. 10? Two No. 10s of course.

"We looked at Liverpool and thought it might cause them a few problems if we played two No.10s in Jack Grealish and Charles N'Zogbia. It turned out that way," said Marcelo Bielsa Sherwood after the FA Cup semi-final win over Liverpool.

Which is odd, as it was Sherwood who told ITV in October: "Players only call themselves No. 10s because they can't score goals."

Has he been reading books on the quiet? Poof.

[frankmosswasmyuncle]

As far as I can see he seems to have a pretty simple, straightforward approach to how we needed to start playing - "go forwards and score more goals" - which is what we all knew!
He's taken a few games to get us doing it, using some pretty basic methods - passing the ball forwards, and - CRUCIAL as far as I can work out - making the players RESPONSIBLE for what they are doing and doing it with purpose, letting them know that they are good enough, and don't need to be scared, to have a go at doing it.

The players are therefore playing with greater confidence, belief in each other and collectively, realising that they are not a shit team, easily rolled over by "big" teams, but capable of giving any team out there a bloody good seeing to.
A few months ago I can imagine our players dreading the next game and how they were going to create anything positive.
Now, I can easily imagine our players looking forward to the next game and loving the idea that they are going to be totally positive and take the game to them.

It was great to see both Spuds and 'The Mighty Reds YNWA' struggle to deal with our "F**k you" approach and our players impose themselves on "big" team stars.   

[SoccerHQ]

Our fanbase always seems to connect better with excitable managers. I'd also say for our club of our size and prestige we don't half quickly go into depression mode when things go wrong in games or start to go wrong during a season so it's vital we have a manager who dosen't wallow in low esteem and can talk up the club regularly in the media.

If you look at what we've come up with in the last 20 years you obviously had Big Ron and also John Gregory for the first two years before the cup final set off a negative trend in his match outlook. I liken Sherwood a lot to JG from what I've seen so far. And MON was certainly another who at the start got the club and what it stood for....before fcuking off.

Compare that to O'Leary of course who couldn't stop talking about Leeds of first and when he got bored of that starting talking about us on a par with Charlton and limited expectations and Houllier's regular head in hands comments and it's important we have the manager promoting the club at every opportunity I think.

The one exception I think was Sir Brian Little who was quiet in his approach but of course got fabulous results for most of his time here although being a club legend anyway helped things.

[pauliewalnuts]

Sherwood is a manager who still hasn't yet chalked up the equivalent of one full season of matches in charge in his career.

It's pretty hard to see how one can make a judgement, positive or negative, on his tactical acuity based on such a short period of time.

In the meantime, so long as he keeps us up, that's all I care about for now, I am not going to worry about the tactics he used to do it. That can wait till next season onwards.

[BoskoDjembaSalifou]

Sherwood is a manager who still hasn't yet chalked up the equivalent of one full season of matches in charge in his career.

It's pretty hard to see how one can make a judgement, positive or negative, on his tactical acuity based on such a short period of time.

In the meantime, so long as he keeps us up, that's all I care about for now, I am not going to worry about the tactics he used to do it. That can wait till next season onwards.

Pretty much how I feel too. When Lambert went, I would've accepted anything if it meant we'd stay up, the fact that we're scoring goals and playing reasonably well is a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

[SoccerHQ]

Sherwood is a manager who still hasn't yet chalked up the equivalent of one full season of matches in charge in his career.

It's pretty hard to see how one can make a judgement, positive or negative, on his tactical acuity based on such a short period of time.

In the meantime, so long as he keeps us up, that's all I care about for now, I am not going to worry about the tactics he used to do it. That can wait till next season onwards.

It probably got lost a few pages back with the board going down for a bit last week but you've made this too short to judge argument a few times now Paulie.

I don't disagree but I would counter with....why where you so convinced we should've given Houllier longer if his health had held up as surely we were talking about a very small game sample aswell considering under him we were rubbish between September 2010-January 2011, picked up for a few weeks when we signed Bent, went shite again by losing at home to Wolves and then picked up again when he was ill anyway and Gary Mc was in charge.

In the short period of time we've probably played much better consistently under Sherwood than at any stage under Houllier and that was with him having a far better squad to choose from although I acknowledge there were plenty of internal problems destabilising things within the squad.

[Toronto Villa]

For me the counter is if things hadn't gone as well as they have (yes I know we have lost games since he's been here but the overall direction we have taken is markedly letter than it was), would people be claiming this is only a small sample size and we should wait longer to judge his ability?

I know this might sound a bit naive but for me anyway, Sherwood has shown more tactical ability in the last few games than Lambert did for the past 18 months. I think if anything Lambert is being proven to be tactically inept in every way by a manager with significantly less experience. Yes Sherwood's overall attitude helps a lot but after what I have seen in the past two weeks anyway, what has come together has been a plan to play this way rather than stumbling upon something mixed in with large doses of bluster. It's another massive test at the weekend so we'll get a chance to see how far we have come and how he plans to use what is now a threadbare squad to counter a much deeper squad that has been assembled at a significantly greater price.

[danno]

I see football management more and more as a head chef type thing now.

You have specialist coaches, medical staff, scouts, nutritionists, performance analysts etc

A Manager doesn't have to be a master tactician, he has to have the ability to hire one,
and the good sense to listen to him.

(eg) Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz

[Toronto Villa]

I see football management more and more as a head chef type thing now.

You have specialist coaches, medical staff, scouts, nutritionists, performance analysts etc

A Manager doesn't have to be a master tactician, he has to have the ability to hire one,
and the good sense to listen to him.

(eg) Ferguson and Carlos Queiroz

I think there is a lot of truth to that. And I would relate that to other forms of management. A manager or Director or VP for example doesn't have to be the best at everything. What they do need is great people around them and give them guidance where needed and the autonomy to do their jobs. I think Sherwood really trusts his coaches and knows when to get out of the way. That in itself is good management.

[ciggiesnbeer]

I don't see anything simple about his tactics at all. He seems to be tweaking things every week, often to good effect.

If I had to point out a negative it would be that I think he could work on his substitutions a bit more.

I absolutely did not see this coming either, I thought we were going from a dour tactical tinkerer to a straightforward up and at em man motivator. So far (and obviously transfers will be a big part of this) Sherwood just seems to be doing a better job in all aspects than any of our last 3 managers.