It's not Sherwood!

[Ormy Droid]

Phew! Apparently Tim says there's no way we'll be struggling against relegation, so that's a relief.

Let's say the worst happens, and we lose the next two games, people will certainly be angry, and I guess those who didn't fancy him when he was first appointed will harden their opposition to him, and those who think he kept us up last year, the football he's got us playing is a lot better (it is definitely) will keep faith. But that's not the real problem. It's the effect on the dressing room I'm worried about if he continues to shift the blame for bad results onto the players, and basically uses his post match interviews to say 'nothing to do with me guv', 'it's all their fault, not mine', 'they haven't got a winning mentality',

Of course individual mistakes have cost us the points in all our last three games,  but as everybody seems to agree, once the opposition make a tactical change at half time, we're found wanting and seemingly incapable of doing anything to counter this shift in the games momentum. You'll have to make your own minds up whether you believe this is due to poor fitness, individual errors, inexperience, or tactical naivety (or a combination of all four).

Personally, I still think that it is Sherwood's lack of tactical awareness, which heaps pressure on the team and leads to the mistakes, the naivety, and even the apparent drop off in fitness. We were completely outnumbered in the middle of the park in the second half against Leicester, principally as we carried about four passengers - Gabby, Sinclair, Grealish, then later Ayew and Guestede, who were incapable of holding onto possession for more than two seconds, while our increasingly shagged out central midfield pair, and dodgy back five did their best to repel wave after wave of attack.

If at two nil up, we had shored up the midfield, brought Hutton on, hit the ball long behind their full backs for Sincalir and Gabby to chase down the channels, and counter attack from there, not committing too many in case we got caught out and saw out the game, then I might start to believe that maybe we weren't destined for our now yearly struggle against relegation, because now when Sherwood says stuff like that, it just sounds to me like more of his meaningless bullshit, and how long will it be before the majority of our first team squad think the same thing?

As you might have gathered, I'm still angry about the abject level of last week's particular capitulation, three points today might help a bit though.

[olaftab]

Phew! Apparently Tim says there's no way we'll be struggling against relegation, so that's a relief.

Yes I am also quite happy now. Thanks Tim.

[brian green]

Perhaps he should have done a Private Fraser, rolled his eyeballs and said we are doomed.

[amfy]

In his pre-match conference on AVTV he says that all that happened last week was that Leicester got a goal which changed the momentum of the game. This worries me a bit - he has had a week to think about it now, so I hope that is just a public stance and he actually thinks something different.

However, he more than made up for this for managing to casually slip the phrase 'We know what they are...' into the interview.

[Dmaund86]

Surely everybody agrees this squad looks more competent then squads in last 4-5 seasons? Results haven't been great but we will see an improved set of results and league position this season I'm sure.

[andyh]

Surely everybody agrees this squad looks more competent then squads in last 4-5 seasons? Results haven't been great but we will see an improved set of results and league position this season I'm sure.

We have said exactly this at the start of the last 4 or 5 seasons, and we know how that has panned out.
It's time for this club to stop saying, thinking or hoping it, and to start fucking doing it!!!

[Malandro]

Surely everybody agrees this squad looks more competent then squads in last 4-5 seasons? Results haven't been great but we will see an improved set of results and league position this season I'm sure.

We have said exactly this at the start of the last 4 or 5 seasons, and we know how that has panned out.
It's time for this club to stop saying, thinking or hoping it, and to start fucking doing it!!!

The difference, to me, is that there is some talent in our squad now. I'm looking forward to the games - our style of play.
I'm not going to start slitting my wrists if we throw games stupidly or we are not top ten.

I'll be honest, I'm happy! Give him a chance.

[OCD]

It was always going to be a difficult start. 13 new players to bed in, all at different fitness levels and needing time to adapt to the league. I saw enough in the first half of the Leicester game to be enthused. Hopefully learnt from the mistakes -glaring mistakes so unlikely to have been missed- and get a good result today.

[Dante Lavelli]

It was always going to be a difficult start. 13 new players to bed in, all at different fitness levels and needing time to adapt to the league.

When we're collectively craving signings in next summer its probably worth countering our urges a tad by the above.  I think there is truth in it and therefore less signings has more impact.  We've seen it with both spurs and liverpool that anything more than about 5 signings is hard to integrate into a coherent unit.  Using the above as an example it does not appear that time improves the situation.

[OCD]

I don't think we had any choice this time around. Hopefully going forward we can be more precise and get some real quality in the positions that need strengthening in future windows.

[Louzie0]

His back will be against the wall if we lose these two. Fact.

I have a new iPad. Fact.

So this is the dawning of a new era!

[Matt Collins]

Tim must be worried that his season is going to be defined by benteke out and gestede / ayew in. At least when we lost Yorke we got dion Dublin in

It doesn't look good

[pauliewalnuts]

What will happen is we will struggle all through this season, finish about 15th or 16th, Sherwood will get another go, and then next season he'll produce exactly the same, at which point he'll be sacked.

I'm going to bookmark this post and refer back to it at the end of next season.

If this goes on much longer, fuck him off. I can't be arsed with the usual horrific cycle of years of eyeball-bleedingly shit football any more.

[Tuscans]

He's only been in the bloody job 5 minutes. You were all jizzing over him last season when we beat them twice...

Birmingham must breed the most miserable people in the UK. Plenty of beautiful women there....feel sorry for your wives.

[Toronto Villa]

He's being found out. Of that there is no question. If he wants to be taken seriously as a football manager he better sort things out quickly. All of the good work he has done is being undone at a tremendous rate.