Tim Sherwood has been appointed as the Aston Villa manager on a three-year contract that reflects the club’s belief he is the man to revive their fortunes in the long term as well as secure their Premier League status this season. The former Tottenham Hotspur manager has agreed a deal until the end of the 2017-18 campaign, with Villa confident his arrival will breathe fresh life into a struggling team and a club fighting relegation for the fifth successive year.
The appointment was made less than 72 hours after Paul Lambert was sacked, following a 2-0 defeat at Hull City City that extended a miserable run of results to only two wins from 21 league games and left Villa in the bottom three. Tom Fox, Villa’s chief executive, and Paddy Reilly, the club’s director of recruitment, were determined to bring in a permanent manager, as opposed to a stop-gap until the end of the season, and Sherwood quickly emerged as the standout candidate.
Fox held talks with Sherwood on Friday and by the end of the evening those discussions were at an advanced stage, with both parties keen to reach an agreement and no other name under consideration for a post that was never going to be easy to fill because of Villa’s perilous league position and the fact there are only 13 games remaining to turn things around.
Sherwood’s contract is believed to be in the region of £2m a year and there is likely to be a significant bonus for keeping up Villa – something that promises to be quite a challenge, given the team’s woeful form and desperate lack of goals. Villa have scored only 12 times in 25 league matches this season.
The 46-year-old is expected to briefly address the players before Sunday’s fifth-round FA Cup tie at home against Leicester City, but he will watch the game from the stands and leave the team in the hands of Scott Marshall, the first-team coach who was placed in temporary charge following Lambert’s dismissal.
Sherwood’s first game as manager will be at home against Stoke City in the Premier League on Saturday and he will formally be announced as Lambert’s replacement at Villa Park on Monday. “It is a great honour to manage one of the biggest clubs in English football,” Sherwood said in a statement on Villa’s website. “I can’t wait to get started and I’m really looking forward to the challenge.”
From Villa’s point of view, Sherwood matches many of their criteria. He is a high-profile name, has experience of managing in the Premier League before – albeit for only five and a half months with Spurs – and is fiercely ambitious. Crucially, given the club’s direction under Randy Lerner, Sherwood also has a track record of developing younger players and, as he proved during his short time in charge at White Hart Lane, he is prepared to give academy graduates a chance in the first-team if they are good enough.
“Randy [the Villa owner] and I are really pleased that Tim has decided to join the club,” Fox said. “Tim had a fantastic career at Tottenham, not only in his brief spell as first-team manager but, just as importantly, in the role he played in developing young talent. We are determined to build a football operation with a long-term vision and a commitment to youth development. We strongly believe Tim has the qualities to get the best out of our squad and help us build and develop for the future.”
Sherwood arguably arrives with a point to prove after being sacked by Spurs at the end of last season – harshly in many people’s eyes after leading the club to sixth place – and missing out on the West Bromwich Albion job in December, when Villa’s rivals turned to Tony Pulis instead. Sherwood had also looked nailed on to take the Queens Park Rangers post earlier this month but talks broke down and Chris Ramsey, his former assistant at Spurs, has been placed in charge at Loftus Road until the end of the season.
Ramsey’s unavailability means Sherwood will need to recruit a new No2, especially as that position has been vacant at Villa ever since Roy Keane resigned in November. It would also be a surprise if Marshall remained at the club under Sherwood in the long term, given the Scot was closely aligned with Lambert.
For the moment it is all about survival and Lerner is hopeful Sherwood’s appointment will give everyone at Villa a lift. “While being forever conscious of the frustrations that we all suffer, we feel that a change that offers a positive, fresh approach will be very good for the club,” the American said.
“I know that Tom and many others at Villa worked very hard to recruit Tim in the face of severely limited time constraints and pounding pressure. More importantly, I know further that internally we remain focused and committed to challenges we face, and I am deeply appreciative for that.”
