Sherwood confident of Villa’s chances
Tim Sherwood insists he can still lead Aston Villa to Premier League survival even though its 27-year stay in the English top flight is under growing threat after a 1-0 defeat against Newcastle United.
Villa slumped to its seventh consecutive league loss after another lackluster display at St James’ Park on Saturday which cost it a chance to climb out of the bottom three.
Sherwood has now lost his first two games in charge since succeeding Paul Lambert.
But the former Tottenham Hotspur manager claims he has seen enough from the players he inherited to suggest he can mount a successful climb out of the drop zone in its remaining 11 games.
“I’m happier in defeat today than I was last week,” Sherwood said after his side went down to a firsthalf goal from Newcastle’s Senegal striker Papiss Cisse.
“I saw an improvement and that display showed me the players are listening on the training ground and taking in the message we’re trying to get across.
“If we keep playing like this, wins will come on the back of it.”
Villa has no time to feel sorry for itself as it hosts West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday, in the first of back-to-back visits from its local rival in the league and then the FA Cup quarterfinals.
“We’re still aiming for six wins before the end of the season to see us safe and I’m telling the boys that I’ ll settle for poor performances if it means we just end up taking the points,” Sherwood said.
“We need a shot of confidence that a win will bring.”
Lambert remained largely reticent to criticise his players or to put them under pressure during his reign but it is an approach Sherwood is happy to abandon as he looks for ways to guide them to safety.
“Paul Lambert probably tried to take the pressure off the players but I’m the other way. We’re under pressure, that’s the message,” he said.
“There are a lot of good people at this club and the pressure is on us to deliver some points.”
Newcastle cemented its place in mid-table thanks to an 11th goal of the season from Cisse, only two less than Villa has managed as a team in the league.
“It wasn’t a classic game but we were expecting it to be tense and tight,” Newcastle caretaker manager John Carver admitted after only a second win of his temporary reign since replacing Alan Pardew in January.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty,” said Carver, who resisted the temptation to give Jonas Gutierrez his first Newcastle appearance for 17 months after the Argentine’s successful battle with testicular cancer.