Poll - Sherwood - got rid

[Chris Jameson]

I hate puns and I don't have a tool kit so im going to have to avoid this thread for the next 7 pages.

[dave shelley]

I never saw that one coming.

[Andy Poole]

It'll be a wrench if he doesn't go now

[olaftab]

We are going to get puns by the spadeful now.

[Andy Poole]

Will there B a Q for his job I wonder?

[Pat McMahon]

Why doesn't JP explain the situation for himself though, like Cheltenham has ? We can all guess as to his motives (probably innocent enough), but only he knows the truth.

I'm off for a garibaldi.

I think that's a clue.

Garibaldi. Red shirt. Always die in Star Trek. Sherwood's gone?

3 2 1 you've won Dusty Bin!

Garibaldi - Nottingham Forest - we're getting Dougie Freedman in

[Ron Manager]

My take on the Sherwood situation is that they don't really have any idea who to go for apart from Moyes.I would suggest they have made contact with him and are in discussions.I also think Sherwood will go whether we win or not.But I would rather have Sherwood in charge than Ray Wilkins on Saturday that's for sure!

[olaftab]

Ray Wilkins being put in temporary charge is the ultimate nightmare.

[brentastonb6]

So sad , football is all about opinions but everything on here seems to be coming out a darker shade of black. Whilst I certainly am not happy with
any of the following : our ownership situation , other smaller teams like Stoke, Palace and Leicester showing what can be achieved, the whole season just appearing like ground hog day since MON jumped.Our teams right through from youth to first team not showing any hope of us having a strategy of being successful. I might be in a massive minority but unless someone has seen or heard from a first team squad player themself all ours appear to be at least pulling in the same direction.Likewise if someone can tell me TS clocks in late and finishes early I still believe he wants to be successful here. I was one of the 74 who said not to sack TS ( I reserve the right to change my mind after the Swansea and Watford home games as I thought before the Stoke home game that if we didn't get at least 6 points from those three then change would be the only option) 73 were undecided and ONLY 371 said to go which out of a 2.1m supporter base is hardly an avalanche requesting change. I could be wrong and we all interperate what is said in different ways but I don't hear TS  saying negative things about the club or the fans (O'Leary) or still in love with another ( Houllier ) . He is the current manager of our once great club and we will only be stronger if we are all in this together .I will be there Saturday getting completely behind him and the team.

[Sexual Ealing]

our once great club

House!

[pauliewalnuts]

He is the current manager of our once great club and we will only be stronger if we are all in this together

You'd best pass that message on to Tim, then.

You'll find him on the Lichfield Road, busily throwing everyone else in front of passing buses in an attempt to save himself.

[andyh]

This is one of the comments below an article on the villa and Sherwood in tomorrow's guardian.
It's a bit long, but please take time to read it, because it's heartfelt and bloody good.

"I've been a fan since my first match in 1974 when I was six years old. In the time since then I've seen some great sides, some great times, and some really really poor sides and leaner times. I've had years as a season ticket holder, a few years going home and away, and seen us get relegated in 86-87.

That relegation year was a horrible low point for us, but what worries me now is that the feeling I get this season is pretty much exactly the same as it was back then.

Football fans can handle their team being shit for spells - that is part of the deal. It is even part of the fun at times. That's not the problem, though. It isn't just that we're shit, it is that we are drifting along like an unloved, badly managed mess, like a spangly Wigan Athletic.

The Lerner years have proved to be disastrous. Yes, three sixth place finishes in a row weren't bad, but at what cost? Look at the gigantic amounts of money Lerner threw at MON. He game him a blank chequebook and we spent the next few years struggling to get over the financial mess he left us in.

There wasn't any oversight from a grown up at the top of the club. We then spent a period desperately trying to stop bleeding money. We started signing utter, utter dross (Luna, Bennett, Tonev et al) as we tried convincing ourselves that "young and hungry" players was the way forward - our leaders seemed to think that all you had to do was buy enough young players, throw them in the deep end in the premier league, and they'd just mature into capable players. Truly idiotic.

And that's not even the worst bit. I wonder how many people on the planet thought that appointing Alex McLeish was ever going to work - a bloke who had just finished relegating our near neighbours whilst playing awful football? What an awful, awful piece of "leadership".

I binned my season ticket a few years ago. If you want to put that in financial context, that year my season ticket cost me the best part of 600 quid. We won 5 home league games, so that is £120 a win.

That's bad enough, but that isn't the real killer. What really sticks in my craw is the meek, pathetic acceptance of mediocrity by the club. If you want to see this mediocrity in action, just look at club "hero", the undroppable Gabriel Agbonlahor moping around the pitch contributing absolutely nothing for months on end whilst on a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of new improved contracts.

Look how long Lambert lasted. I can think of at least half a dozen spells of results under Lambert which were so poor, they'd have got any other manager in the league the sack, but he somehow managed two and a half seasons. Why? Because that sort of pathetic performance was considered acceptable.

I can honestly say that over that time, we became the sort of club that, were I not a Villa fan, I would want to go down.

I did not think this was possible, but Sherwood's performance so far has actually been worse than Lambert. If we have any scrap of pride left, we'll get shot of him

Muddled tactics, 4 points from 9 games, poor decisions (pathetically throwing away 3 points in the last 25 mins at Leicester by making brainless substitutions), idiotic nonsense in the media (spending 45 mins lumping useless long balls at Birmingham City was 'all part of my plan'), line ups chosen by throwing a dart at a piece of paper, throwing absolutely everyone else under the bus to save himself (these 'I didn't choose the players' stories - I wonder what effect that has on squad morale?), the dreadful gobshitery in the media, all of this stuff, it is truly awful "leadership".

His mates in the media have jumped to his support - Jenas, Shearer, the other predictable names - with the "he's doing a good job" routine, in the true manner of people who haven't paid to watch a football match for years. Good job? Losing 7 games of 9?

Yes, he kept us up last season (a glorious 17th place finish) but the signs were already there. He lost over half his games last season. We put in a Cup final performance even worse than the one we managed in 2000, something I thought was impossible. We got thumped 6-1 by Southampton, and lost at home to relegated Burnley on the last day of the season. This was all in the period of his "amazing job" last season.

It is absolutely nothing like good enough, not even for those of us who have spent the last five years watching eyeball-meltingly shit football.

The club seem to have pretty much zero pride these days, but they have absolutely got to grow some balls and try to convince a few of us that this sort of rubbish is not acceptable, admit they've made a mistake, replace him and move on.

Keep this chancer in place much longer and we are absolutely doomed to what I suspect won't be a short stay in the Championship."

 

[pauliewalnuts]

This is one of the comments below an article on the villa and Sherwood in tomorrow's guardian.
It's a bit long, but please take time to read it, because it's heartfelt and bloody good.

"I've been a fan since my first match in 1974 when I was six years old. In the time since then I've seen some great sides, some great times, and some really really poor sides and leaner times. I've had years as a season ticket holder, a few years going home and away, and seen us get relegated in 86-87.

That relegation year was a horrible low point for us, but what worries me now is that the feeling I get this season is pretty much exactly the same as it was back then.

Football fans can handle their team being shit for spells - that is part of the deal. It is even part of the fun at times. That's not the problem, though. It isn't just that we're shit, it is that we are drifting along like an unloved, badly managed mess, like a spangly Wigan Athletic.

The Lerner years have proved to be disastrous. Yes, three sixth place finishes in a row weren't bad, but at what cost? Look at the gigantic amounts of money Lerner threw at MON. He game him a blank chequebook and we spent the next few years struggling to get over the financial mess he left us in.

There wasn't any oversight from a grown up at the top of the club. We then spent a period desperately trying to stop bleeding money. We started signing utter, utter dross (Luna, Bennett, Tonev et al) as we tried convincing ourselves that "young and hungry" players was the way forward - our leaders seemed to think that all you had to do was buy enough young players, throw them in the deep end in the premier league, and they'd just mature into capable players. Truly idiotic.

And that's not even the worst bit. I wonder how many people on the planet thought that appointing Alex McLeish was ever going to work - a bloke who had just finished relegating our near neighbours whilst playing awful football? What an awful, awful piece of "leadership".

I binned my season ticket a few years ago. If you want to put that in financial context, that year my season ticket cost me the best part of 600 quid. We won 5 home league games, so that is £120 a win.

That's bad enough, but that isn't the real killer. What really sticks in my craw is the meek, pathetic acceptance of mediocrity by the club. If you want to see this mediocrity in action, just look at club "hero", the undroppable Gabriel Agbonlahor moping around the pitch contributing absolutely nothing for months on end whilst on a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of new improved contracts.

Look how long Lambert lasted. I can think of at least half a dozen spells of results under Lambert which were so poor, they'd have got any other manager in the league the sack, but he somehow managed two and a half seasons. Why? Because that sort of pathetic performance was considered acceptable.

I can honestly say that over that time, we became the sort of club that, were I not a Villa fan, I would want to go down.

I did not think this was possible, but Sherwood's performance so far has actually been worse than Lambert. If we have any scrap of pride left, we'll get shot of him

Muddled tactics, 4 points from 9 games, poor decisions (pathetically throwing away 3 points in the last 25 mins at Leicester by making brainless substitutions), idiotic nonsense in the media (spending 45 mins lumping useless long balls at Birmingham City was 'all part of my plan'), line ups chosen by throwing a dart at a piece of paper, throwing absolutely everyone else under the bus to save himself (these 'I didn't choose the players' stories - I wonder what effect that has on squad morale?), the dreadful gobshitery in the media, all of this stuff, it is truly awful "leadership".

His mates in the media have jumped to his support - Jenas, Shearer, the other predictable names - with the "he's doing a good job" routine, in the true manner of people who haven't paid to watch a football match for years. Good job? Losing 7 games of 9?

Yes, he kept us up last season (a glorious 17th place finish) but the signs were already there. He lost over half his games last season. We put in a Cup final performance even worse than the one we managed in 2000, something I thought was impossible. We got thumped 6-1 by Southampton, and lost at home to relegated Burnley on the last day of the season. This was all in the period of his "amazing job" last season.

It is absolutely nothing like good enough, not even for those of us who have spent the last five years watching eyeball-meltingly shit football.

The club seem to have pretty much zero pride these days, but they have absolutely got to grow some balls and try to convince a few of us that this sort of rubbish is not acceptable, admit they've made a mistake, replace him and move on.

Keep this chancer in place much longer and we are absolutely doomed to what I suspect won't be a short stay in the Championship."

 

That's me.

[Steve67]

Great article but I wonder what the reaction to Sherwood will be on Saturday if we beat Swansea? Will people want to give him more time at that point? FWIW, can't see us winning, Swansea are on a shit run so who better to play than us?

[Villa in Denmark]

Paulie, that could have been written by you.

Whoever the author is, it's a fantastic piece of work. Well argued with just the right level of disdain and derogatory descriptions without getting nasty or resorting to hyperbole.

Edit. You confessed whilst I was typing.