It's not Sherwood!

[aj2k77]

Isn't that pretty much all we have though?

Richards, Amavi, Grealish and Gueye look good Premier league players.
Hutton, Clark and Sinclair very, very average ones.
Then the rest you have a mix of shit like Westwood to unknowns like Veretout.

[paul_e]

The transfer stuff is just more bollocks from Sherwood. For starters, during the summer he was acting like he was finding all these overseas gems and now he's saying they were nowt to do with him, he actually wanted to sign predictable shite from Spurs.

And does he really expect people to believe that at no time from when he was interviewed for the job to when we were signing players that he was consulted, or told, what our transfer policy was going to be.

Actually it is fairly easy to believe that our owners had not thought that far ahead when Sherwood was appointed.  However he seemed supportive of the recruitment until it started going tits up on the pitch.

I don't think even us or Sherwood would never think to mention/ask what our future plans were. Especially regarding transfers. As crap as we can be at times, or as inexperienced/stupid or whatever you want to say about Sherwood, I just can't see that at no stage between interview and starting to sign players that it wasn't discussed between the club and him.

You would have thought so, and you are probably right, but at the time I would have thought the focus was very much on avoiding relegation rather than any potential transfer window policy. Plus were the Sporting Director and scouting chap hired after Sherwood ?  So maybe the policy evolved after that?  I don't know I just get the impression Lerner and Fox are making it up as they go along.  Not trying to make excuses for Sherwood though,  he should be making way more of the players he has to work with.

But then you're responding to only part of what PWS said the bold bit is the key, when he got the job you may be right, avoiding relegation was all that really mattered but as soon as the season finished you'd think it would be discussed.  If at that point he gave a list of players and they turned them down and told him he'd get what he was given there's a clear case of constructive dismissal  so if he thought it was impossible to do better than 4 points from 9 games he should've walked and taken us to tribunal. That he didn't and, when the fans started to get a bit excited, he made a big deal of his involvement in the transfers means he's accepted them as his players, which makes everything coming out now face-saving bullshit because he's failed to achieve even the bare minimum of making them look like they've trained together.

[oldhill_avfc]

It's lazy saying you'd take every player in their squads over any of ours. Still, that Stephen Ireland is great isn't he. As for Joselu, I bet you know all about him. And so on.

I said why I think the squad is massively underperforming, how about you say why Joselu is better? Or how Wasilewski is better than anything we have? Danny Simpson, what a player!

You're absolutely right - I am being lazy.  To be honest I know the square root of fuck all about their squads.

But what I do know is that they're above us in the table and even with the best manager in the world our current squad would be very limited.

So, if you offered me a like for like swap right now I'd take it.

I wouldn't swap the squads, obviously each side has players i'd like in our squad, same as plenty of sides would like Grealish, Richards, Amavi etc. It's the respective managers that are achieving/failing with the squads they have.

Put it this way, do you think Leicester would be 5th with Sherwood in charge of them? If we had Hughes, would we have 4 points and no idea of what the plan is for the squad?

I've never tried to defend Sherwood in any of this.  His coaching, team selection and tactics are a total liability.  All I have tried ask is that those of you who think the squad is mid-table try to explain what you see that backs up the assertion, because it doesn't tally with what I see - and I've set out the key liabilities in earlier posts.

If he had any footballing acumen he still might be able to turn it round.  But he hasn't and that's why I believe certain managers might be able to do something - but the there's a lot of emphasis on 'might' and 'something' means survive, no more.

And for the record, whatever the ins-and-outs of the summer's transfer policy he is ultimately responsible.  He would have happily taken the plaudits if it had worked out and now must take responsibility.

[PeterWithesShin]

Maybe I should add that I said 'comfortable' rather than just straight comfortable as I meant 11th-13th area rather than 9th/10th type midtable.

[cheltenhamlion]

Let's make this clear, Fox will be hurting at how his man is behaving. He really isn't as daft as some people make out. I can assure you he is a shrewd and ruthless fucker.

If he thinks he has been fucked over by a bloke he put his neck on the line for? There is only one way that ends.

The big question is do the Arsenal contingent on the board let Randy pick a nice bloke he likes or put their foot down and say "no, this chap from Europe is our man and here is why".

How the next few years play out will be dictated by that.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Let's make this clear, Fox will be hurting at how his man is behaving. He really isn't as daft as some people make out. I can assure you he is a shrewd and ruthless fucker.

If he thinks he has been fucked over by a bloke he put his neck on the line for? There is only one way that ends.

The big question is do the Arsenal contingent on the board let Randy pick a nice bloke he likes or put their foot down and say "no, this chap from Europe is our man and here is why".

How the next few years play out will be dictated by that.

Maybe they'll reach a compromise and choose Capello. He and Randy can talk about their art collections during their three calls a week.

[itbrvilla]

Let's make this clear, Fox will be hurting at how his man is behaving. He really isn't as daft as some people make out. I can assure you he is a shrewd and ruthless fucker.

If he thinks he has been fucked over by a bloke he put his neck on the line for? There is only one way that ends.

The big question is do the Arsenal contingent on the board let Randy pick a nice bloke he likes or put their foot down and say "no, this chap from Europe is our man and here is why".

How the next few years play out will be dictated by that.

Will he really? He was clueless when it can to dealing with Lambert and was blaming the fans for over reacting the silly twat.

[eric woolban woolban]

Why is Dim still here? Sort it out Fox before its too late.

[cheltenhamlion]

Let's make this clear, Fox will be hurting at how his man is behaving. He really isn't as daft as some people make out. I can assure you he is a shrewd and ruthless fucker.

If he thinks he has been fucked over by a bloke he put his neck on the line for? There is only one way that ends.

The big question is do the Arsenal contingent on the board let Randy pick a nice bloke he likes or put their foot down and say "no, this chap from Europe is our man and here is why".

How the next few years play out will be dictated by that.

Will he really? He was clueless when it can to dealing with Lambert and was blaming the fans for over reacting the silly twat.

Him trying not to upset the Boss who thinks Lambert is a nice bloke and a legacy of a hands on Lerner was the flavour I got.

[itbrvilla]

Either way. It's not good for club/fan relations.

[Monty]

I think we're starting to see what the Spurs fans meant when they said Sherwood was a conniving little backstabber. 7 defeats out of 9 and apparently none of it is his fault, and his mates in media agree. What a surprise.

[Ger Regan]

I think we're starting to see what the Spurs fans meant when they said Sherwood was a conniving little backstabber. 7 defeats out of 9 and apparently none of it is his fault, and his mates in media agree. What a surprise.

Well, at least it took a little longer to come to pass than their judgement of his tactical abilities.

[LTA]

Thing is when your in the bottom three and adrift, that's when you need everyone to be together and have a seige mentality.

This appears to be open warfare with Sherwood feeding ammunition and the press firing his bullets for him.

[Ger Regan]

He's now my least favourite villa manager since I started following the club. That's pretty good going when you've got O'Leary for competition.

[Legion]

He's now my least favourite villa manager since I started following the club. That's pretty good going when you've got O'Leary for competition.

He's fallen into the MO'N and DO'L category for me aswell.