It's not Sherwood!

[Ian.]

Yes, 100% more bullshit.

[pauliewalnuts]

Yes he was probably not ready for the job in the long term, sometimes his tactics just were not not there, but were his performances any worse than the  ones  under Garde so far.

Yes.

He was woefully out of his depth as we saw when he put together a run of a win, a draw and eight defeats.

Once the new manager bounce ended - and it actually ended last season, it was just clouded by a very good semi final performance - it was pretty clear he was enormously out of his depth.

Conceding six at Southampton, getting beaten easily at home by relegated Burnley, getting twatted at Wembley by an Arsenal side who barely got out of first gear.

Not only was he out of his depth, he struck me at the time, and even more since, as an absolute fucking gobshite of the highest order.

Pointing the finger whilst still in the job, throwing everyone under the bus to save himself, and the shenanigans with his media mates since.

Fox should hang his head in shame for ever thinking such a thoroughly unpleasant, gobby, clueless arsehole was the man to put in charge of this club.

I though Houllier had an inflated view of his own worth, MON sold us down the river, McLeish was a doom merchant and purveyor of awful football, and Lambert had no idea how to turn things around, but on a personal basis, I would take every single one of these - even Pubehead - over Tim Sherwood.

A truly horrible piece of work. Good fucking riddance.

[Toronto Villa]

Credit where credit is due, for a short period last season he returned our Villa to us.

Its not his  fault that the likes of Benteke,  the snake and Cleverly left. 

Yes he was probably not ready for the job in the long term, sometimes his tactics just were not not there, but were his performances any worse than the  ones  under Garde so far.

I still think he gave  100% and more.

There is no doubt he provided a much needed spark to lift our season from doldrums of Lambert. But give me a break with the "the returned our Villa to us". No he didn't. He did his job in the manner that he knows and it worked. But that flame was already dimming going into the West Ham game and completely went out thereafter. He didn't have much of a plan after that and had the season extended for a couple more games a good argument can be made that we would have gone down. He then, we thought played a key role in player acquisition, only to find he said he wasn't, and then when things started to go wrong throw just about everyone under the bus to protect Brand Sherwood. He was found out quicker than most people thought and he knew it. So everything in his way after that was game as he refused any accountability, ably assisted by his mates in the media.

I'll thank him for not being Lambert, for the FA Cup games vs Albion and Liverpool, and for the league games that saw us to safety. He can fuck off after that for being Tim Sherwood and ensuring he had access to water while the house behind him was ablaze.

[ozzjim]

We have been massively more organised, and worked much harder since Garde came. Results have not improved much I give you, but without a striker and losing Amavi early doors it has been a tough start. Arsenal, Watford and Everton are all bang in form, Southampton, Man City and Newcastle were all good points. I would love to us to win a couple of games to get the monkey off the back and some belief, but the side looks much better than it has at all this season, short of 60 minutes at Leicester, a game in which Sherwood strapped the nous around his own neck with his ineptitude at managing a game.

[ClaretAndBlueBlood]

Yes he was probably not ready for the job in the long term, sometimes his tactics just were not not there, but were his performances any worse than the  ones  under Garde so far.

Yes.

He was woefully out of his depth as we saw when he put together a run of a win, a draw and eight defeats.

Once the new manager bounce ended - and it actually ended last season, it was just clouded by a very good semi final performance - it was pretty clear he was enormously out of his depth.

Conceding six at Southampton, getting beaten easily at home by relegated Burnley, getting twatted at Wembley by an Arsenal side who barely got out of first gear.

Not only was he out of his depth, he struck me at the time, and even more since, as an absolute fucking gobshite of the highest order.

Pointing the finger whilst still in the job, throwing everyone under the bus to save himself, and the shenanigans with his media mates since.

Fox should hang his head in shame for ever thinking such a thoroughly unpleasant, gobby, clueless arsehole was the man to put in charge of this club.

I though Houllier had an inflated view of his own worth, MON sold us down the river, McLeish was a doom merchant and purveyor of awful football, and Lambert had no idea how to turn things around, but on a personal basis, I would take every single one of these - even Pubehead - over Tim Sherwood.

A truly horrible piece of work. Good fucking riddance.

didn't you like him?

[Richard]

I will always thank him for that week in March when we sorted out Albion, and the semi, not forgetting beating Blues - but overall he was tactically naive and just lacked the ability to manage when the going got tough. Reckon he could coach youngsters but nowhere near enough a Premier League standard manager.

[Olof's Beard]

I am a little uncomfortable with the amount of vitriol he gets on here now. He deserves credit for last season, given the state we were in and how late it was in the season, he did a remarkable job by quickly identifying what we needed to do to get out of trouble and playing to those strengths.

I think everyone at the time was prepared to let him off the Southampton horror show and pathetic display against Burnley because we all thought we would have a bounce at Wembley. But the opposite was true, the team looked clueless and were chasing shadows. Questions marks had to be raised then.

Now to this season, and make no mistake, the absolute lion's share of the blame for what's happened lies with him. He made some huge mistakes:

1. The squad were not fit enough. They looked shagged in those early matches and then Sherwood admitted as much when he said they needed a mini pre-season during the international break. Now, amazingly - and this show his ultimate flaw - he admitted that without a smidgen of self awareness or responsibility. He had never taken a pre-season before and it showed. Surely one of the most criminal failings of any football manager is the failure to ensure the team is ready for the start of the season.

2. Whether it was out of spite or failure to recognise their talent or fear about blooding new players, he didn't play the likes of Ayew and Veretout early in the season. Ayew put in one heck of a cameo against the unwashed - full of purpose, talent and confidence - and wasn't seen again until the Swansea game. The argument that Sherwood didn't deserve the sack because he didn't get to sign his own players seems to be the one used most commonly to defend him in the media. Well, Timmy, I'm glad. The players you didn't want are the best.

3. The ridiculous chopping and changing of the team early in the season. I think he actually thought this was clever 'experimentation' but didn't fool the fans or, I suspect, the players. He didn't have a clue what to do and was panicking. If he had picked our best players in a set formation for 7 or 8 games on the trot, they would have settled into the season much better and I doubt we would be in this position.

4. Leicester away. A great 45 minutes of attacking football, a weathering of the storm, followed by some of the worst substitutions I have ever seen. If you are a player that day you are thinking 'what the fuck is he doing?' We win that day and both us and Leicester would be in mid table. Rarely can a couple of managerial decisions have had such a contrasting effect on the fortune of two teams. He never again set us up to play as we did in the first half.

5. I think he lost the respect of the players. I met a bloke in Malta who was a close family friend of one of the players. In fact, the said player was picking him up from the airport when he flew back. He said that this player told him all the team in general liked Lambert, but they didn't think much of Sherwood or his methods.

I don't think he was fooling anyone associated with the club including fans, players or management this season. Only the media fell for his stories, because most of them are incapable of doing any proper journalism and just report whatever the nearest loud mouth tells them to report. The team he left was bereft of spirit, confidence and fitness. Garde is trying to build a platform by addressing each one simultaneously. He is doing a pretty good job but needs wins now.

[AVH87]

I am a little uncomfortable with the amount of vitriol he gets on here now. He deserves credit for last season, given the state we were in and how late it was in the season, he did a remarkable job by quickly identifying what we needed to do to get out of trouble and playing to those strengths.

I think everyone at the time was prepared to let him off the Southampton horror show and pathetic display against Burnley because we all thought we would have a bounce at Wembley. But the opposite was true, the team looked clueless and were chasing shadows. Questions marks had to be raised then.

Now to this season, and make no mistake, the absolute lion's share of the blame for what's happened lies with him. Here's the reasons:

1. The squad were not fit enough. They looked shagged in those early matches and then Sherwood admitted as much when he said they needed a mini pre-season during the international break. Now, amazingly - and this show his ultimate flaw - he admitted that without a smidgen of self awareness or responsibility. He had never taken a pre-season before and it showed. Surely one of the most criminal failings of any football manager is the failure to ensure the team is ready for the start of the season.

2. Whether it was out of spite or failure to recognise their talent or fear about blooding new players, he didn't play the likes of Ayew and Veretout early in the season. Ayew put in one heck of a cameo against the unwashed - full of purpose, talent and confidence - and wasn't seen again. The argument that Sherwood didn't deserve the sack because he didn't get to sign his own players seems to be the one used most commonly to defend him in the media. Well, Timmy, I'm glad. The players you didn't want are the best.

3. The ridiculous chopping and changing of the team early in the season. I think he actually thought this was clever 'experimentation' but didn't fool the fans or, I suspect, the players. He didn't have a clue what to do and was panicking. If he had picked our best players in a set formation for 7 or 8 games on the trot, they would have settled into the season much better and I doubt we would be in this position.

4. Leicester away. A great 45 minutes of attacking football, a weathering of the storm, followed by some of the worst substitutions I have ever seen. If you are a player that day you are thinking 'what the fuck is he doing?' We win that day and both us and Leicester would be in mid table. Rarely can a couple of managerial decisions have had such a contrasting effect on the fortune of two teams. He never again set us up to play as we did in the first half.

5. I think he lost the respect of the players. I met a bloke in Malta who was a close family friend of one of the players. In fact, the said player was picking him up from the airport when he flew back. He said that this player told him all the team in general liked Lambert, but they didn't think much of Sherwood or his methods.

I don't think he was fooling anyone associated with the club including fans, players or management this season. Only the media fell for his stories, because most of them are incapable of doing any proper journalism and just report whatever the nearest loud mouth tells them to report.

A very good post. I think points 1, 3 and 4 show why he lost the fans and explain a lot of the vitriol he receives now. His arrogance and pig-headedness meant he didn't make the effort to do what was required in pre-season on the training ground and put in the hard yards and get the players to follow suit. Then followed the tactical naivety in the shape of Leicester subs, Stoke formation, players dropped/not picked when on form (Ayew), and Kieran fucking Richardson picked over Amavi.

[amfy]

That last line of point 4 is the thing that bugs me most. I think it really was that simple - start like that again but try different tweaks. I cannot fathom how he didn't get that.

[Dave]

he did a remarkable job by quickly identifying what we needed to do to get out of trouble and playing to those strengths.

No he didn't. The popular sentiment at the time was that anybody who wasn't Lambert would have been fine given the players that he had to work with.

It's a 'remarkable job' that anybody who realised that just giving the ball as quickly as possible to our one brilliant player could have done.

[joe_c]

That last line of point 4 is the thing that bugs me most. I think it really was that simple - start like that again but try different tweaks. I cannot fathom how he didn't get that.

I remember watching his interview in the aftermath of that and he came across as being completed devastated at how things had turned around and at the time, I thought this was evidence of how much he cared but in retrospect seems to just be further proof of his lack of ability in the job.

[Olof's Beard]

he did a remarkable job by quickly identifying what we needed to do to get out of trouble and playing to those strengths.

No he didn't. The popular sentiment at the time was that anybody who wasn't Lambert would have been fine given the players that he had to work with.

It's a 'remarkable job' that anybody who realised that just giving the ball as quickly as possible to our one brilliant player could have done.

Maybe 'remarkable' was a strong word, but he was the man chosen for the job and most of us thought he would be a disaster and we would end up relegated. Whether another manager could have done it as well is speculation. If winning football matches was just about 'getting the ball to your best player' then it would be a different game. He gave Grealish a chance, got him playing well and in a system in which he, Delph and Cleverley could win the midfield battles and ensure Benteke could do the rest.

He did what he needed to do and got us to a Cup Final to boot, with a couple of great memories along the way. For that, I think he deserves enough credit to avoid the highly personal attacks aimed at him by a lot of folk, but make no mistake, he takes the majority of the blame for what has gone on this season.

[OzVilla]

He lost the fans and I suspect the players after Leicester.

He monumentally fucked up that day with some breathtaking nievity and arrogance but then threw the players under the bus afterwards.  From then on the dye was cast.

[AVH87]

He lost the fans and I suspect the players after Leicester.

He monumentally fucked up that day with some breathtaking nievity and arrogance but then threw the players under the bus afterwards.  From then on the dye was cast.

Did he actually throw anyone under the bus after Leicester? I just remember him being almost in tears.

[Dave]

He lost the fans and I suspect the players after Leicester.

He monumentally fucked up that day with some breathtaking nievity and arrogance but then threw the players under the bus afterwards.  From then on the dye was cast.

Did he actually throw anyone under the bus after Leicester? I just remember him being almost in tears.

He didn't single anybody out, but said it was basically the players' fault. "There was a lot of bad play there in the last half hour. The only way you can stop the momentum is to stop the opposition. We turned it over stupidly".

Obviously what he meant to say was "what a fool I am for gifting Leicester the game with my bad decisions"