Patience is wearing thin at Villa Park, a grand old ground where the smell of history that always hangs in the air can be both a blessing and a curse, a comfort blanket for supporters who remember the good old days but a constant sharp reminder that a team who once won the European Cup have fallen a long way from the modern elite.
Aston Villa cling to the past because there is nothing to celebrate about the present. “Form is temporary, class is permanent” reads a banner in the Holte end, a message that only hammers home how insipid the current side are.
Tim Sherwood repeatedly said, in the aftermath of the defeat to Stoke City, that Villa are missing a spark, a creative talent who can lift the team. Villa were bland. The atmosphere was flat, a feeling of ennui and weariness deflating the mood, and the ground was far from full. The final whistle lifted the lid on the crowd’s bubbling anger. The boos were long and loud and one fan could be heard bellowing at Sherwood to resign.
This was Villa’s fourth successive league defeat. They are 18th, four points behind West Bromwich Albion, and have earned one point since beating Bournemouth in their first match. They have failed to score in three of their four home games.
“My message to the fans is I absolutely 100% understand their frustration,” Sherwood said. “When your team’s not winning you’re going to be very disappointed and I understand that. I’m the manager and I take responsibility for the performance but it’s the same Tim Sherwood who they were singing my name last season and I’m not working any less hard now. I can turn it around. I know I can and I will.”
Villa sold Christian Benteke and Fabian Delph in the summer and signing 13 new players has confused Sherwood’s thinking. He admits that he does not know his team and here he used a poorly conceived 5-3-2 system that limited his side’s attacking variety, a problem he exacerbated by starting Carles Gil and Jack Grealish on the bench. The experiment lasted until half-time, when Grealish came on for Joleon Lescott.
“I keep changing the system and formations in search of that spark,” Sherwood said, managing to sound both hopeful and forlorn. “We need to find it. We need to find the right formation and the right players to play in it. We’d love to win a game and keep the same team for four or five weeks but unfortunately I haven’t got that luxury.”
Sherwood needs to discover quickly whether his players possess the strength of character required to survive in the Premier League. “I’m learning all the time about them,” he said. “They train hard. They’re all good lads.” He was silent for a moment. “I need some men to come out the woodwork,” he said.
Villa looked callow, easy to bully. Stoke outplayed them for long spells and Marko Arnautovic scored the winner in the 55th minute. Arnautovic had a reputation as a troublemaker in the past but is settled in his third season at Stoke. “He always wants to please,” Mark Hughes, Stoke’s manager, said. “He wants to engage with you, he wants to have a relationship with you, he wants to feel valued.”
Arnautovic’s quality was too much for Villa and Sherwood has to drag himself and his team off the floor before they visit Chelsea on 17 October. “I’ve seen and worked with managers and it’s ups and downs,” Sherwood said. “We’ve got a manager in the opposite dugout today who’s not had it all his own way at every club he’s been at but he’s come through and stuck to his beliefs. That’s exactly what Tim Sherwood will be doing.”
Man of the match: Marko Arnautovic (Stoke City)
