It's not Sherwood!

[Risso]

One thing about the new TV deal is that it's evened things out a bit amongst the teams outside of the top 4, so you can start to see who the genuinely good managers are, and who aren't.

[walsall villain]

I can actually claim to have been pissed off when we went for Sherwood.  It smacked of desperation and not having done any homework on who else might have been available.  Fox and co took a gamble bringing in such an inexperienced manager.  It worked in keeping us up but that is beginning to look like a slightly delayed new manager bounce.   His inexperience is really letting us down now, and it's no great surprise to be honest. You can also clearly see some of the traits of his failed predecessors - stubbornness, shoehorning certain players in, incomprehensible substitutions, poor to disastrous in-game influence, failure to see the blindingly obvious (like it was his tactics that threw the Leicester game away),  inability to organise a defence, failure to address our piss poor set piece delivery.  We've seen it all before to various degrees under O'Neill, McLeish and Lambert.  As if that lot isn't bad enough he also seems to have turned us into one of the least fit teams in the league.  He's either got to learn fast or sod off.   

It smacked off desperation? Where you watching us? We were desperate. We needed a manager who would just go for it and he fitted the bill at the time. If we continue to struggle this year I will thank him for last year and move on to the next.

[Jimbo]

Sherwood was a punt (no that's not a typo). We also took a punt on Lambert, McLeish and Houllier. We've took punts on young and hungry players from Britain and now abroad. We take punts on ageing names like Lescott and Pires. Almost everything we do is a gamble, and until we bring in proven quality, both players and managers, then we'll gamble with our PL status.

The sad thing is we're not a big club any more, far from it, but we once were, and not too long ago. This means everyone wants to step up and give us a beating. We stink out the league and a lot of fans would really love to see us finally drop. We add nothing to the PL. If we finally go down - and let's be honest, it's a distinct possibility, even at this early stage of the season - then we will find it incredibly difficult to bounce back because everybody will want to take our scalp.

If Sherwood loses to Small Heath then I can't really see a way back for him. The fans will be on his back, and we've got some tough games to follow. But unless we get some proven quality in to replace him the future could look very bleak indeed.

[mr woo]

He's proving to be everything I expected him to be...and more or less what we were warned about by Spurs fans is coming to pass.

Fair play to him for keeping us up, and I actually like the way he comes across in interviews - total relief after Lamberts dreary bullshit  - but ultimately I'm not sure what anyone was expecting, putting the YTS kid in charge of the department is always likely to end in tears.

[pauliewalnuts]

Whilst I agree with everything else there, Jimbo, the bit I don't agree with is the no way back if we lose on Tuesday.

The people who run us managed to give Lambert right till the last moment at which they had no choice. The chairman doesn't really care too much, and the manager is too much "the CEO's man" to get the boot in a hurry.

That's what scares me, another of those "judge him after this season" then "give him a second season" situations where nothing changes.

We do absolutely stink out this league, though. If i didn't support us, I'd really, really want us to go down. We are really just a slightly less geographically remote Sunderland.

[Jimbo]

I don't think he'll go directly after a loss on Tuesday, but the writing will be on the wall. It will take a few more defeats, but even Mr False Narrative should be able to see the folly in persisting with him. Who knows, we might even win and turn everything around?

Ha ha. Hahahahahahahahahaaa. Aha. Oh, Christ.

[andyh]

A very good post Jimbo.

Even at this early stage of the season, and factoring in the last couple of months of last season, there must be a valid argument that allows for people to think that Sherwood might not be the long term answer.

As others have said, he came in, and JUST ABOUT  kept the club up.
To be honest, the club was in such a state in February, I think pretty much any change could have brought about enough of an improvement to keep us up.

But, where is the evidence that Sherwood can improve up, make us a mid table side?
Where the evidence that says he has made us harder to beat?
Where is the improvement on our absolutely disgraceful home record over the last 4 years?

Today, we barely had an effort on goal, infact, I don't actually recall their keeper making a save, and we finally managed to force a corner mid way through the second half.
Where is the actual improvement?

We might not be 'eye bleedingly' bad to watch like under Lambert, but the final results are just as shit.

[Jimbo]

Today was as clueless as anything served up by Lambert.

[Dave]

We might not be 'eye bleedingly' bad to watch like under Lambert, but the final results are just as shit.

The first half today was every bit as bad.

[pauliewalnuts]

We might not be 'eye bleedingly' bad to watch like under Lambert, but the final results are just as shit.

The first half today was every bit as bad.

The whole match was very Lambertian.

The passing it around the half way line harmlessly thing was straight out of Lambert's era.

[Rudy65]

He isn't going anywhere soon. The board will give him time after the money he has spent

[mr underhill]

I'd be very happy to take any number of shit performances if we actually ended up on the winning side.

[Toronto Villa]

We might not be 'eye bleedingly' bad to watch like under Lambert, but the final results are just as shit.

The first half today was every bit as bad.

The whole match was very Lambertian.

The passing it around the half way line harmlessly thing was straight out of Lambert's era.

I felt that for the first time today. It was as if the well of ideas was bone dry already. It's only the 6th game and it just felt that way. Once the initial plan failed to provide the desired results what followed appeared to be no more than rolls of the dice than anything properly thought through.

If I take hope out of anything is that the collection of players if Sherwood was to go tomorrow with the right coaching would be very good. It's not the overall dross Sherwood took over. It's still early days and we all kind of knew there would be a sticky patch as he integrated these players. Just didn't think it would look like this. More Lambert back end of year one, a good number of goals and high scoring games but we would get better as the season went on. Not liking that way at all right now.

[Dave]

Once the initial plan failed to provide the desired results what followed appeared to be no more than rolls of the dice than anything properly thought through.

What is this 'initial plan' of which you speak? The only time I saw anything resembling a plan was "get the ball to Bacuna to cross it in the general direction of Gestede" in the last fifteen minutes.

There didn't seem to be anything in the first half apart from "just go out and have a bit of a go".

[Rudy Can't Fail]

We might not be 'eye bleedingly' bad to watch like under Lambert, but the final results are just as shit.

The first half today was every bit as bad.

I actually didn't the first half was that bad at all. It was two teams having a go at each other, end to end stuff, your typical local derby. The difference was Albion were creating real opportunities, we created next to nothing due to hoofing it up to Gabby, Albion's 8 organised men behind the ball. Either team could have snatched a goal, it was that open.

What was disappointing was Sherwood had no response to his pointless tactics. It was more of the same, replacing Sinclair, who I actually felt sorry for, with Gestede. His whole plan seemed to be throw it in the box and hopefully we'll get one on target. The hoofing it upfield continued, all playing to the strengths of the Bitters' defence. It was how we all imagine Tony Pulis' teams play except this was not even effective.

Once again Sherwood gets tactically owned by the opposition's manager. I'm sure the Notts County manager is still cursing the lack of fitness of his players. The most frustrating thing is we have a more than decent squad. Nothing new at Villa Park. What's also not new is having a tactically inept manager who hasn't a clue what to do with the players.

I haven't given up on Sherwood as I really can't believe he's that thick that he can't see what's going wrong and why. Saying that, I predicted that even if he managed to keep us up, he'd be gone by November. Right now there's nothing likely to make me change my prediction as I can't see where we are going to pick up the points in the coming months.