As the scale of the task facing him at Aston Villa became increasingly apparent, Tim Sherwood looked suspiciously like a man fighting the temptation to sprint on to the pitch and begin bossing midfield.
The scrappiest of afternoons concluded with Villa summoning no riposte to Papiss Cissé’s first-half winner, leaving their new manager in the thick of a relegation fight. Although Newcastle are safe enough in mid-table this was also a big game for John Carver with his players suggesting they are still very much behind him in the wake of last weekend’s 5-0 debacle at Manchester City.
“It wasn’t pretty,” said Carver, who bravely fielded two wingers and two strikers in an extremely attacking formation. “But there’s huge relief in the dressing room. Players put their bodies on the line for the win.”
Sherwood was left hunting for positives. Ignoring choruses of “that’s why we’re going down” from the Villa fans, sitting high in Leazes End, he duly detected an upturn. “A much-improved performance,” he declared. “We were getting the ball wide, crossing and creating chances for Christian Benteke.”
Admittedly, on another day Villa might well have secured a draw but their final ball proved consistently wanting. “I never said it would be easy, I knew it would be tough and it’s getting tougher, but a win will come,” said Sherwood, still seeking his first point after two games in charge.
“If we perform like that we’ve got more of a chance. There’s no lack of spirit in the dressing room, the boys really care but this is a massive football club and we’re under pressure.”
Newcastle took the lead against the run of play. When Daryl Janmaat crossed from the right, Jores Okore failed to clear, leaving Cissé to control the bouncing ball before lashing his 11th goal of the season beyond Brad Guzan.
Although Ashley Westwood contributed some superior, impressively incisive, passes from central midfield and Benteke forced Tim Krul into a fine save courtesy of an acrobatic overhead kick, the majority of the play was shapeless and incoherent. For large parts of the first half the latest gargantuan television deal and all the ‘best league in the world’ hype seemed an incredible marketing con trick.
At least we had a touch of human interest in the shape of the Sherwood show, down in the visiting technical area. Bar the odd thumbs-up for Westwood, Paul Lambert’s successor appeared anything but blown away by his new players. While his body language frequently screamed dismay – to the extent he sometimes looked in physical pain – Sherwood’s attendant torrent of expletives provided Villa’s bench with a running commentary on the team’s inadequacies.
Badly missing the suspended Jack Colback’s midfield control, Newcastle were heavily reliant on their admittedly formidable counter-attacking acceleration. Yet if Sammy Ameobi’s penetrating pace on the break petrified Villa at times, Carver had reason to be grateful to Krul when the Holland goalkeeper saved superbly from Tom Cleverley after his connection with Benteke’s flick.
Shortly afterwards Benteke had a ‘goal’ disallowed for offside. With Janmaat and a much-improved Fabricio Coloccini defending particularly well in a resolutely stubborn home rearguard and Newcastle’s Ayoze Pérez hitting a post, the sense that it was not to be Sherwood’s day deepened. A cameo involving Coloccini performing wonders to block Westwood’s goal-bound shot felt entirely emblematic.
By now the visiting manager was prowling the touchline with arms folded and a fed-up frown. Indeed, with Westwood’s influence waning, Villa’s football increasingly mirrored Sherwood’s growing frustration.
The transition from bleak West Midlands midwinter to sun-dappled spring seems unlikely to be seamless.
