It's not Sherwood!

[pauliewalnuts]

Improving on last season should be a pretty minimal task, surely?

I doubt there's a club around in the top flight with lower expectations than us, but week after week we get served up shit.

It says a lot that Sherwood was seen as a potential messiah for winning, what, three or four league games last season.

[aev]

He had to sort out problems without a doubt, but not the sheer negativity and defeatist attitude around the club. I'm not saying Sherwood is the one to fix it as there are certainly question marks as to whether he is the person to do it, but I think we have to accept it's a massive task that's unlikely to be fixed quickly.

The thing is how massive a task is it? All he has to do is get a group of professionals organised and to play in a coherent way. Having spent 6 months here he has hopefully also decided who does and doesn't fit into his way of thinking.

We have had a reasonably easy start to the season fixtures wise, and yet have 4 points.

Maybe it is knee jerk, but I can only comment on what I see, and I am pretty worried about us this season.

[Sexual Ealing]

I don't think we need to worry about the talking in the third-person thing. The last time we had a manager who did that things worked out pretty well, as Dave O'Leary told Dave O'Leary only this morning over a lovely boiled egg.

[PeterWithesShin]

He had to sort out problems without a doubt, but not the sheer negativity and defeatist attitude around the club. I'm not saying Sherwood is the one to fix it as there are certainly question marks as to whether he is the person to do it, but I think we have to accept it's a massive task that's unlikely to be fixed quickly.

The thing is how massive a task is it? All he has to do is get a group of professionals organised and to play in a coherent way. Having spent 6 months here he has hopefully also decided who does and doesn't fit into his way of thinking.

We have had a reasonably easy start to the season fixtures wise, and yet have 4 points.

Maybe it is knee jerk, but I can only comment on what I see, and I am pretty worried about us this season.

Ultimately none of truly know how big a task it is as we aren't in the dressing room etc. I do think back to what SGT1 said about the club when he first arrived, and that was after 2 seasons of shite. So it could be bigger than we think, or of course, easier.

And i'm more worried than I was a a few games ago, no denying that.

[Leicester_Villian]

I think you can not afford to give Tim till after mid November to have got this together .... leave it longer and we could start to become adrift at the bottom ...... also by making a change at that point it gives a new manager 6 weeks to access the squad before making changes in January

One name I would not have thought of before today is Nigel Pearson ....... there would be limited managers about but Pearson I believe was unlucky to get the boot at Leicester ...you only need give him a contract till end of the season with the promise of an extension in its Prem football next season

I am not one of these who wants to keep changing managers but I am more worried at this stage this year than last so for me Tim has till mid November to show we didn't make yet another mistake

[citizenDJ]

I'm still in the 'he needs more time' camp. It's a lot of new players to bring in and then integrate into the squad, and then to put together into a team. I also think that there have been enough glimpses of good stuff to see what he can do as the team gets more used to his ideas. At times under his leadership we have really played some good stuff and I'd like to see if he can build on that.

That said, the results aren't too clever, especially in a run of games against some of the easier teams in the league to beat, and Sherwood's in-game decisions are actually bafflingly awful.

On balance, I still think it's a little early to be drawing definitive conclusions about his ability, especially given the influx into the squad and, I suppose, some injuries to players too. I'm not totally convinced he's not an idiot, but then I'm not totally convinced he is, either and so I reckon he deserves time to prove it one way or another.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Watching Norwich now against Liverpool and they really are a well organised team and play without fear. I'd never even heard of their manager, Alex Neil, at 34 the youngest manager in the PL. He was appointed a couple of weeks before Sherwood took over at Villa Park. If he can get a little club like Norwich up to speed with next to no money to spend, you have to wonder why Sherwood can't do it with so much more.

Maybe it's because Neil had a few years learning his trade at Hamilton. No idea but the gulf in the way Norwich play and ourselves is massive.

[ChicagoLion]

I think you can not afford to give Tim till after mid November to have got this together .... leave it longer and we could start to become adrift at the bottom ...... also by making a change at that point it gives a new manager 6 weeks to access the squad before making changes in January

One name I would not have thought of before today is Nigel Pearson ....... there would be limited managers about but Pearson I believe was unlucky to get the boot at Leicester ...you only need give him a contract till end of the season with the promise of an extension in its Prem football next season

I am not one of these who wants to keep changing managers but I am more worried at this stage this year than last so for me Tim has till mid November to show we didn't make yet another mistake

Nigel Pearson ! seriously? lets hope Randy comes over all ostrich like on this one.

[aj2k77]

I'd be interested to know how he plans to suddenly develop tactical acumen. Is that the sort of thing you can learn in a few weeks?

Maybe he's intending to 'do a Neo from the Matrix' and suddenly turn into some sort of invincible genius.

You mean it's possible to plug him in to some machine with the combined minds of Saunders, Atkinson and Little and have him walk out saying ''I know tactics''?

[Chris Smith]

Watching Norwich now against Liverpool and they really are a well organised team and play without fear. I'd never even heard of their manager, Alex Neil, at 34 the youngest manager in the PL. He was appointed a couple of weeks before Sherwood took over at Villa Park. If he can get a little club like Norwich up to speed with next to no money to spend, you have to wonder why Sherwood can't do it with so much more.

Maybe it's because Neil had a few years learning his trade at Hamilton. No idea but the gulf in the way Norwich play and ourselves is massive.

A few years ago you could have written something similar about a previous Norwich manager and look how that turned out. I don't suppose they have had the turn over in players we had this summer so you would expect them to better organised. Sherwood might turn out to be a duffer but until he gets a settled side and his new players bedded in he should be given the benefit of the doubt.

[SoccerHQ]

Watching Norwich now against Liverpool and they really are a well organised team and play without fear. I'd never even heard of their manager, Alex Neil, at 34 the youngest manager in the PL. He was appointed a couple of weeks before Sherwood took over at Villa Park. If he can get a little club like Norwich up to speed with next to no money to spend, you have to wonder why Sherwood can't do it with so much more.

Maybe it's because Neil had a few years learning his trade at Hamilton. No idea but the gulf in the way Norwich play and ourselves is massive.

Norwich are playing in a similar manner to when they last came up. I wonder who was their manager back then....oh.

[aj2k77]

We don't need to be making more gambles on managers who have little to no experience. If anyone can give me a good reason why our last 4 managerial employments have been

Semi Retired bloke with poor health
Loser who keeps getting relegated
Wet behind the ears, 1 year experience in the top division
Even wetter behind the ears bloke

then I am all ears, it smacks of stupidity.

We will keep on giving these losers the benefit of the doubt, making excuses for them for months on end even when their limitations are staring us straight in the face, then we sack them, months and months after we should of, then we rise and repeat and employ someone else not qualified to get us out of this rut.

Statistically from what I can gather we have the worst results in the entire top 4 divisions of English football for the last 4 years. It's bloody terrible and a smear on this great clubs history and we've spent fuck all the last 2 seasons to arrest this slump. Villa are really pissing me off.

[PaulTheVillan]

Big Sam.   

[CT Villan]

Watching Norwich now against Liverpool and they really are a well organised team and play without fear. I'd never even heard of their manager, Alex Neil, at 34 the youngest manager in the PL. He was appointed a couple of weeks before Sherwood took over at Villa Park. If he can get a little club like Norwich up to speed with next to no money to spend, you have to wonder why Sherwood can't do it with so much more.

Maybe it's because Neil had a few years learning his trade at Hamilton. No idea but the gulf in the way Norwich play and ourselves is massive.

A few years ago you could have written something similar about a previous Norwich manager and look how that turned out. I don't suppose they have had the turn over in players we had this summer so you would expect them to better organised. Sherwood might turn out to be a duffer but until he gets a settled side and his new players bedded in he should be given the benefit of the doubt.

Also, what Lambert found and Sherwood is finding, is there is a weight of expectation associated with being Villa manager that perhaps is not encountered at the likes of Norwich. It seems strange to me that people are talking about getting rid of him, especially considering the number of new players we have brought in and the number that departed. This is not an overnight fix and will take time. I must be getting old because it seems that society today demands instant gratification continually, where have all of the fine wine or whiskey artisans gone. Problem is very few (nobody?) are capable of delivering sustainable success when the task is so massive within 5 minutes of getting their legs under the table. Have patience and lets stop the revolving door - because that's a no-win scenario.

At least we are playing some of the other relegation candidates, like Liverpool and Chelsea over the next few weeks so we may be able to pick up a few points there (or not).

[Risso]

Improving on last season should be a pretty minimal task, surely?

I doubt there's a club around in the top flight with lower expectations than us, but week after week we get served up shit.

It says a lot that Sherwood was seen as a potential messiah for winning, what, three or four league games last season.

I think it was the scoring of more than 1 goal in 7 games that got people over-excited!