Tim Sherwood has not ruled out the possibility of walking away from the Aston Villa job if he becomes unhappy in the role but the man whose future is on the line in Saturday’s home game against Swansea City says he will continue to “stand at the front and take it on the chin” as he seeks to turn things around.
Villa are second from bottom after picking up only one point from a possible 24 and Sherwood said he has told his players that the Swansea match falls into the category of “must win”. Should Villa suffer a sixth successive Premier League defeat, the expectation is that Sherwood will be sacked eight months after taking over.
Although Sherwood said he was not concerned that the board has made no attempt to back him publicly amid a frenzy of speculation, there was a hint of the frustration that has been building inside him when he was asked whether he could foresee a time when he might walk away from the job.
“Yeah, I would always say that,” Sherwood said after a lengthy pause. “Whenever I’m not happy with the situation and I’m not happy in my job of work, then I would [walk away], 100%. Not now. And if I can take what I’ve taken over the last few months and still be happy, that tells you a lot.”
Pushed to elaborate on that last comment, Sherwood added: “I’ve taken the brunt of this football club over the last few months, everything that everyone wants to throw at it – negatives – it’s been on my head. And that’s my job as a manager to take that responsibility. I’m not in the background, am I? I’m the manager, I get paid to stand at the front and take it on the chin and that’s what I’m doing.”
Whatever Sherwood meant by those remarks – there is friction behind the scenes and the suspicion is that he is annoyed he has had to explain and justify a recruitment strategy not entirely of his own making – there is no escaping the significance attached to the Swansea match.
“I am telling the players it’s a must-win because I think we need to win a game sooner or later,” Sherwood said. “This is a cup final. Forget Wembley last season, this is a cup final. It isn’t a bigger game in my mind, it’s the next one, but it is a massive game, not only for me but for them as well. They all want to be Premier League footballers and this club needs to be in the Premier League. I know we will be and they need to know we will be. They will only do that by winning games and getting that confidence.”
While Sherwood said that he has not changed as a person on the back of the worst run of results he can remember suffering as a player or a manager - “I’m still cocky” he said with a smile – the Villa manager revealed that he has made a conscious effort to rein in his own behaviour on the touchline, where he has never been one to hide his emotions, because the players are so “anxious”.
“It’s all right me jumping around like a lunatic on the sidelines but I’ve tried to calm that down for their benefit really,” he said. “I can’t affect it once they cross that line. I can only make certain decisions during a game. They want to win but it’s about showing people and making the correct decisions at the right time under pressure - that’s what makes top players.
“I don’t want to bring anxiety to anywhere, certainly to the crowd, because that spreads to the players and that’s the last thing they need at the moment because they are anxious.”
