Tim Sherwood…gone \o/

[Yermiyahu]

Personally I think that it instead says more about the blinkered views of some of our fans. Don't get me wrong, I am pleased that we will have a (hopefully) strategic choice in charge next season, but Sherwood came into the hotseat and improved our results while also improving our mind numbingly boring to watch football. Sherwood did a reasonable job as a tactical fix to fill in the gap until the point at which we could make our strategic fix. He has also delivered us Europa League football via league position (which was looking increasingly unlikely under his predecessor) which may help our next manager establish our pattern of play and blood players. He also ensured that our squad was retained ready for the next manager to take charge with the added benefit of a number of youngsters having shown what they can do.

With the above in mind I would like to say thanks to Sherwood for doing a decent job during his tenure at the club, despite him having been thrown in at the deep end. I wish him success in his next role as manager.

This 100%. Some of the vitriol shown to Tim Sherwood on this board has made me despair .Please gents, lets give the new guy a couple of Seasons before we put him on trial.

 

[Robspur12]

If people want to criticise AVB's tactics can we all please take it to some kind of tactics thread.

You're all ruining my ridiculing Timmeh thread, thanks.[/QUOTE]

:ross: To be fair mate I think thread looks pretty good, in that respect, already...

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

He's only the last resort in the same was as a striker is the last resort going forwards.

Everyone on the pitch has a role, that's a major part of his. Aside from a couple of games where it really went to **** it worked (and I know we've had this discussion before about preferring to lose 2 matches 6-0 than losing 6 2-0).

What does that first sentence even mean? You're going to have to explain further I'm afraid.

Obviously everyone has a roll, and if it works it works, I'm not questioning that. My point was that Lloris bailing out the defence is not the same as Sandro bailing us out in midfield. Which is what you said originally.

edit: It wasn't us that had that discussion btw.

 

[Yermiyahu]

Let's all ridicule him but lets not forget his record, had he been in charge for 38 games rather than 22 at had the same win ratio it would have netted us 74pts, our highest ever tally.

He wasn't perfect, or even right for the job, but he got the job done.

Don't let rational thought get in the way of the hatred. IMHO he wasn't right for the job, but he did his best and got us a European place, something that throughout the 90's we were desperate for.

 

[scaramanga]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

What does that first sentence even mean? You're going to have to explain further I'm afraid.

Obviously everyone has a roll, and if it works it works, I'm not questioning that. My point was that Lloris bailing out the defence is not the same as Sandro bailing us out in midfield. Which is what you said originally.

edit: It wasn't us that had that discussion btw.

The first sentence means that in most formations if the striker is failing the team won't score (much at all). If the DM is failing teams will walk through you. If the sweeper keeper is failing then the opposition will probably score.

The cost of keeping possession further up the pitch is to have a high line. If you can afford talented, quick defenders to go with that, great. If, like us, you have to choose between one and the other there's really not much difference between talented and slow defenders (Dawson) and not so talented fast defenders (Walker) - both have their costs and benefits.

 

[Robspur12]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

That's what a sweeper keeper does. It's not bailing out any more than Sandro tackling in the middle of the pitch or a winger taking on their man - it's what he does.

I thought the purpose of the sweeper keeper was to be a last resort to add another layer to mop up the occasional mistake by the defence. In our case it seemed to be the main line of defence because the 4 players in front of him were constantly being caught out. So what happened was the sweeper keeper would anticipate a mistake over commit himself and it would end up looking like lloris was ****. Which is clearly not the case. TBF this was a problem for Sherwood as well as AVB.

 

[Jordinho]

So how comes his almighty predecessor couldn't do it against the same teams then ?

You can't have AVB was great, Tim was ****,when against the same teams, with the same players, Tim's record was significantly better.

A whooping 1 point better.

	AVB	Sherwood
Palace Swansea Arsenal Norwich Cardiff Chelsea West Ham Aston Villa Hull Everton Saudi Sportswashing Machine Emirates Marketing Project Man Utd Fulham Sunderland Liverpool	3 3 0 3 3 1 0 3 3 1 0 0 1 3 3 0	3 3 0 0 3 0 0 3 1 3 3 0 3 3 3 0
	27	28

 

[Robspur12]

A whooping 1 point better.

	AVB	Sherwood
Palace Swansea Arsenal Norwich Cardiff Chelsea West Ham Aston Villa Hull Everton Saudi Sportswashing Machine Emirates Marketing Project Man Utd Fulham Sunderland Liverpool	3 3 0 3 3 1 0 3 3 1 0 0 1 3 3 0	3 3 0 0 3 0 0 3 1 3 3 0 3 3 3 0
	27	28

However done with more goals and without the fortuitous penalties of course which made AVB's record look far better than it was to those watching the teams.

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

The first sentence means that in most formations if the striker is failing the team won't score (much at all). If the DM is failing teams will walk through you. If the sweeper keeper is failing then the opposition will probably score.

The cost of keeping possession further up the pitch is to have a high line. If you can afford talented, quick defenders to go with that, great. If, like us, you have to choose between one and the other there's really not much difference between talented and slow defenders (Dawson) and not so talented fast defenders (Walker) - both have their costs and benefits.

But you can see the difference in risk though right? Your DM has a bad game there is much less a risk of you losing a game than there is if your sweeper keeper does.

I would argue that if you can't afford talented, quick defenders then you shouldn't be playing a high line (depending on the opposition), but I think that's been done to death by now.

 

[harr1984]

A whooping 1 point better.

	AVB	Sherwood
Palace Swansea Arsenal Norwich Cardiff Chelsea West Ham Aston Villa Hull Everton Saudi Sportswashing Machine Emirates Marketing Project Man Utd Fulham Sunderland Liverpool	3 3 0 3 3 1 0 3 3 1 0 0 1 3 3 0	3 3 0 0 3 0 0 3 1 3 3 0 3 3 3 0
	27	28

Thats only sixteen teams, Im guessing the others Sherwood played twice? There are only three games out of those 16 that AVB bettered Sherwood and all three Sherwood had the away fixtures for....

 

[scaramanga]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

I thought the purpose of the sweeper keeper was to be a last resort to add another layer to mop up the occasional mistake by the defence. In our case it seemed to be the main line of defence because the 4 players in front of him were constantly being caught out. So what happened was the sweeper keeper would anticipate a mistake over commit himself and it would end up looking like lloris was ****. Which is clearly not the case. TBF this was a problem for Sherwood as well as AVB.

Not really, no.

A traditional keeper is the last line of resort - a sweeper keeper will inevitable be used far more as they (by design) patrol nearly half the pitch when in possession, that's sort of the point of having one.

And I don't think it looks like Lloris is **** when he makes a mistake to anyone other than the knuckle draggers at the Mirror and people like Redknapp/Dalglish (maybe some West Ham fans too). Anyone with any level of understanding of football outside of how it's been played on this skill-ridden island would know that.

 

[scaramanga]

However done with more goals and without the fortuitous penalties of course which made AVB's record look far better than it was to those watching the teams.

Do we get to count fortuitous missed penalties? Opponents missing when it's easier to score?

 

[indospurs]

Not much to compare between AvB and Tim. Thanks anyway, perhaps not the most scintillating footy, but did much better than I think people would credit him for when he was announced to take over. Only have the three useless wet spam games to see how crap it did go. 4-0 to liverpoo wasn't too bad, just bad enough.

I think he's learnt a lot this season, i'd be interested to see if he does alright elsewhere with a not so good squad.

 

[BrainOfLevy]

Such utter nonsense being spoken about in here RE AVB's tactics. :-#

 

[Kingdawson]

Such utter nonsense being spoken about in here RE AVB's tactics. :-#

like?

 

[Gutter Boy]

This 100%. Some of the vitriol shown to Tim Sherwood on this board has made me despair .Please gents, lets give the new guy a couple of Seasons before we put him on trial.

The new guy won't come with the same baggage. Even Bergkamp (as FdB's assistant) would be welcomed with open arms.

Not much to compare between AvB and Tim. Thanks anyway, perhaps not the most scintillating footy, but did much better than I think people would credit him for when he was announced to take over. Only have the three useless wet spam games to see how crap it did go. 4-0 to liverpoo wasn't too bad, just bad enough.

I think he's learnt a lot this season, i'd be interested to see if he does alright elsewhere with a not so good squad.

Let's see how their respective careers go from here. AVB is already doing very well at another CL club. I'd be very willing to bet that Timmeh's career follows a similar path to Paul Ince's.

 

[SpurMeUp]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

To put it in it's most basic terms, it's high pressure (with a lot of false pressing), keeping possession, rather than overloading the attack the tactic is to wait for the right moment and then pounce with the sudden forward movement of two or three players - say Walker and Paulinho together. It's also about conserving energy and using the ball to tire the opposition. There are usually tightly controlled drills in training to cover every problem and to increase ability where there are gaps.

I like all of that as an approach. I'd love to just go toe to toe with every team, but you need to be the better team to do that, and we can't afford to be the better team without a rich benefactor.

I think motivation is massively overrated in this country - two disorganised teams, one good and unmotivated, the other **** and motivated will create an even match. If the good team is organised, skilful and well-drilled they will usually still win.

I think AVB's downfall was firstly a lack of off-the-ball movement, IMO this has been a problem with our team since the early 90s. Barring the odd top player (Berbatov, Modric, Bale) our players are very static off the ball, and that doesn't sit at all well with a possession style. I don't know what is causing it or how to fix it (if I did I'd be throwing gilets around the touchline at WHL), but it's been a problem for a long time and AVB wasn't able to fix it in his short time here.

His other downfall was a lack of patience from the fans/club/media. In his first season I think the better long-term option was to try and set the team up to play in his image. Unfortunately, that would have meant almost certainly not making the CL and making it more likely Bale would leave. So the other option was to just get the most out of Bale, go for the CL and try to work in parts of the philosophy. After Bale left he was trying to integrate a new philosophy and a whole load of new players all at once - it just wasn't going to work in the short term

I think the players we have coupled with the style AVB wanted would have gone on to be pretty good. Replace a couple of our more expensive players with the ones AVB wanted (or players more similar in style to them) and I think we could have been very good indeed.

That's interesting. Thanks for taking the time.

I agree with a more secure approach. Keeping it tight at the back first and then developing the attack second. No one has won anything when they leak lots of goals. But - Liverpool and City have shown a different way. I agree we don't have the players to succeed with a more attacking approach as city have used, and under TS we didn't quite get the balance right leaving ourselves open to better attacking teams. But against small teams the Mourinho/ AVB approach is less successful. See Chelsea. Excellent against top teams. Shyte against smaller teams. Its about getting the balance between attack and controlling the game right, and adapting to each game. Liverpool so nearly got it right and city did, while chelsea were too conservative, so you can see why TS has favoured a more adventurous approach. It is proven.

Its not just that players don't run around enough, its that they don't know where to run, and aren't drilled effectively. Ultimately that was AVBs responsibility. If you're expending energy on closing down, you have less in the tank to run for the pass. A good manager makes it work however, and get the balance right.

I think we had become stale when AVB left. I think the problem was he tried to be more adventurous - as we were not scoring enough since day one of the season. But it was out of his comfort zone, and instead of scoring we shipped goals. In short AVB didn't know how to get us setup to break down teams effectively, or did not have the time to get that side right. His philosophy is based on Mourinho's style and similar problems exist at chelsea, but they have more creative players and can simply buy spark to unlock teams. Imo Rodgers has got it right and TS is also right to get us being more proactive in attack.

Motivation is less important than confidence, belief and clear instruction. I don't think AVB was able to give much of these kinds of things to the players when it mattered and that's why he lost his job.

 

[jts1882]

Thats only sixteen teams, Im guessing the others Sherwood played twice? There are only three games out of those 16 that AVB bettered Sherwood and all three Sherwood had the away fixtures for....

Yes, the AVB's better results against Norwich, Chelsea and Hull had home advantage. Likewise TS's better result against Everton had home advantage.

The two results where TS did substantially better were the wins at Saudi Sportswashing Machine and Man United after a home loss and draw, respectively, so overall he did do slightly better. He deserves credit for bring bringing back Adebayor and giving some young players a chance.

The question has to be did he do sufficiently better to deserve the full-time job, as let's face it, we all know he was caretaker manager in all but name? Did we see signs that there would be a significant improvement long-term or can most of the difference be attributed to their different handling of Adebayor?

 

[Bullet]

Re: Tim Sherwood…not treated with the respect a headmaster is.

My own thoughts are that AVB's tactics were not too complicated. In fact they weren't complicated at all, they were just not very good....

Defenders - push up the pitch to the half way line at every possible opportunity, irrespective of who we are playing and what pace they might have up front.
Wide players - always cut inside when given the ball to make things as congested as possible.
Midfielders - advance with the ball slowly, never try a 'risky' pass even if it might result in a scoring opportunity. Keep the ball at all times, end up camped just outside the oppositions penalty area and then give it to one wide players so that they can cut inside and have an impossible shot from outside the area.
Forwards - who cares.... You are only really there to get involved in the build up play.
Whole team - hope that the opposition don't win the ball off of you and launch a quick counter attack to expose the huge space that exists in behind you.
Goalkeeper - do the impossible job of defending that whole huge space mentioned above that the opposition are desperately trying to exploit on the counter attack.

Spot on. AVB's system was not working and could never take us where we want to be with the players at our disposal this year.

Similarly Sherwood's system was not working and could never take us where we want to be.

Hopefully the new guy's system will not be so blatantly flawed, so there will be some small crumb of possibility that we can get where we want to be.

That is why I became so disenchanted with Spurs this season, you lot are arguing about Sherwood's behaviour etc but the key point is that neither manager had a system that could possibly work given the players we have.

 

[Kingdawson]

It was the easiest league in recent memory. 13 (arguably 14) really crap teams. 78 easy points.

This guy lives in a planet by himself.