It's not Sherwood!

[Chris Smith]

 anybody that takes much joy from that second half against such a pathetic pub team, needs their head looking at.

Personally I find it difficult to believe that any Villa fan can't find time to thoroughly enjoy beating that lot no matter how it comes about, but each to their own.
He got it wrong in the first half but at least we now know Clark can't play in front of the back four so we can forget that idea for a while, and then he changed it and we were very good in the second half. And don't forget we are still without arguably our best two midfielders in Gana and Traore.

I'm not convinced by Tim, but I am encouraged.

Just read an explanation for his first half tactics and it kind of makes sense, if he was just winging it then it was quick thinking to come up with a plausible story. So, by playing it long in the first half it pushed their defence back towards their own penalty box. So, when Jack came on he had more space to play in because they were set up to counter the long ball. I am feeling charitable due to the win so - well done Tim.

[Dave]

F365

Did Sherwood ‘plan’ Villa being rotten?

We are finding it a tad hard to believe that a Premier League manager’s plan against Championship opposition was to let them think they were much, much better…

When Alex McLeish is in the Sky Sports studio baffled at the amateurish nature of Aston Villa’s first-half performance, you know things are going badly. One shot on target badly. Just 72% pass completion badly. Hit hopeful/hopeless balls towards the head of Rudy Gestede (who has defiantly not got a good touch for a big man) badly. Dwight Yorke seemed almost close to tears as he talked about a basic lack of quality in a Villa side playing against Championship Birmingham and looking very much second best.

Centre-half Ciaran Clark was predictably lost in midfield (while actual midfielder Carlos Sanchez was sat on the bench), the ball was bouncing off Gestede, Scott Sinclair was continuing his love affair with hitting the side netting from a very tight angle and Gaby Agbonlahor looked like he was playing with the weight of all his ladyfriends on his back.

So that experiment hasn't worked. Villa have been utterly atrocious. Like, incredibly bad

— Martin Laurence (@martinlaurence7) September 22, 2015

At half-time something had to change. And it did. Agbonlahor came off for Jordan Ayew, while Joleon Lescott was substituted and replaced by Jack Grealish, who entirely changed the match by moving in between Birmingham’s lines, linking with Ayew and wonderful left-back Jordan Amavi and generally playing football. Things were better. Two shots on target (one of which was a goal) better. An impressive 85.5% pass completion better. Not brilliant, not groundbreaking, but much, much better.

We expected manager Tim Sherwood – after being widely criticised for his bizarre substitutions against Leicester – to soak up the applause for making positive changes while acknowledging that the first half was truly awful. ‘I fixed it’ should have been the proud boast, and we would have said ‘fair play; he fixed it’.

But no. ‘I planned it’ was the proud boast. Yorke’s distraught face was an absolute picture as Sherwood explained that he had planned to be so utterly terrible in the first half in order to lull Birmingham into a false sense of security. Apparently his plan at home against a Championship side in a derby game was an extended version of rope-a-dope.

“The plan worked,” said Sherwood with a straight face. “We went two different ways. First half, we looked to stretch them out, go very direct.

“Second half, they could not cope with the change. We looked to get the ball down, we popped it around, and found space in between lines. Before you know it, the ball is in the back of the net, because Grealish has got in between lines and flicked it out.

“We always want to play free-flowing football but sometimes you’re not capable of doing that. We let them know that we are willing to mix it up. It wasn’t pretty, we understand that, but we are looking to get a result.

“Second half, I think if you look at the position of their centre-halves, they pushed another 10 yards further back, and they could not adjust.”

So it was a cunning plan. A cunning plan that relied entirely on Birmingham not scoring in that opening 45 minutes when Jacques Maghoma and Demarai Gray failed to convert very good chances gifted to them by Villa’s incompetence. That’s one ballsy plan.

We would happily call bullsh*t at this point but that would obviously look churlish after a 1-0 win. So we will instead leave the last word to Birmingham manager Gary Rowett:

“I have heard Tim said he purposely let us do that in the first half so they could change tactics in the second half but I’m not sure a tactic of getting booed at half-time would particularly be a good one.”

Indeed.

Sarah Winterburn

[VILLA MOLE]

Why cant he just say he got it wrong with the formation in the first half , made a couple of changes to put us on the front foot in the second and it worked , job done

[themossman]

Because he's a berk with an arrogant streak but I'm more worried about the results than his interviews and his last result was a good one.

[onje_villa]

We beat a Championship side 1-0, with 45 mins of decent football, not getting too excited yet. Let's see how we do this weekend.

Is the right answer. And I'd say it was more like 20 minutes. And the keeping the ball in the corners in the 84th minute at home to Blues was pathetic.

[Ads]

Pathetic was the absence of game management against Leicester.

[saunders_heroes]

We beat a Championship side 1-0, with 45 mins of decent football, not getting too excited yet. Let's see how we do this weekend.

Call me old fashioned but I bloody love beating Small Heath. If this doesn't get Villa fans up then God knows what would.

[Brend'Watkins]

We beat a Championship side 1-0, with 45 mins of decent football, not getting too excited yet. Let's see how we do this weekend.

And the keeping the ball in the corners in the 84th minute at home to Blues was pathetic.

had we been playing Man City or Chelsea I could understand it but Blues? 

[Ads]

Some people get it, clearly others don't.

[saunders_heroes]

We beat a Championship side 1-0, with 45 mins of decent football, not getting too excited yet. Let's see how we do this weekend.

And the keeping the ball in the corners in the 84th minute at home to Blues was pathetic.

had we been playing Man City or Chelsea I could understand it but Blues? 

And if we'd been attacking then they scored a late equaliser from a break what would you have said then?
Jesus!

[Jockey Randall]

Even though it clearly didn't come off in the first half I do find it pleasing that we're prepared to try and mix up our playing styles now. There are a fair few previous regimes where it was Plan A or nothing else.

[saunders_heroes]

Tim has been rightly criticised for his substitutions this season but he got them right last night so fair play to him for that.

[OzVilla]

Why cant he just say he got it wrong with the formation in the first half , made a couple of changes to put us on the front foot in the second and it worked , job done

He gives away so much of his personality with a reaction like that.

About 15 years ago I had a client who knew Sherwood in Watford back in the day.  Said he was the most arrogant person you could ever meet and told a very unflattering story of him.  Now this could well just be someone with a grudge but the arrogant part sounds bang on from the outside looking in. 

Not a sin in itself in management (exhibit A being Brian Clough) but you've got to know when your sounding like a twat and likely to piss off your players.  That's where he's still got some work to do IMO.

[VILLA MOLE]

Tim has been rightly criticised for his substitutions this season but he got them right last night so fair play to him for that.

absolutely  , but he cant pretend that the first half was the plan and   

was going well ? who is he kidding

[OzVilla]

We beat a Championship side 1-0, with 45 mins of decent football, not getting too excited yet. Let's see how we do this weekend.

And the keeping the ball in the corners in the 84th minute at home to Blues was pathetic.

had we been playing Man City or Chelsea I could understand it but Blues? 

We've conceded a shed load of late goals, we needed to close out the game, movng forward we need to learn to close out games much better so here was an ideal opportunity and it was a game Sherwood couldn't afford another fuck up with.

I honestly have no problem with this.