dn1982

Longer term that that, yeah you're right who can say? No-one as yet knows what he is like in terms of identifying weakness in the squad and getting value for money in the transfer market strengthening the squad as he's never done it before....

Yes, very much an unknown quantity. In some ways I prefer that to a more proven albeit limited and predictable manager á la Pulis and Allardyce. It's exciting in terms of the intrigue - how he'll approach the market, what sort of team he'll build, what system he'll work towards etc.

The most important managerial trait if he is to achieve anything significant long-term will be tactical acumen and flexibility. No matter how good they are in the market or how good they are as motivators/man-managers and coaches, tactically one-dimensional managers always get found out.

Although I will criticise when I feel it is appropriate, I won't be too judgemental regarding his decisions this season. One of the main things he stressed in both his first press-conference and interview was that the philosophy (i.e. playing style) in the short-term would be totally different from that in the long-term. So I'll hold him to that.

Saying that, I did take a great deal of encouragement from the Albion game. Especially the shape, it was primarily a diamond but flucuated at times - fluid, in other words. There was genuine interchange and off-the-ball movement. Sort of epitomised by Grealish effectively being given a free role when coming on. It was a sign that Sherwood may be capable of some element of tactical sophistication.

This is pretty much where I'm at. One thing people have used against Sherwood is that he's a standard 442 bloke that's crap at tactics and is only a rabble rouser. Well the Albion game debunked that as as you say it was a diamond with certain players quite fluid. It's only 3 games but there's been a significant improvement on tempo and desire if that can be allied to changing tactics to suit the opposition I'm sure we will all be happy. It also makes a change to actually looking forward to hear what he has to say in interviews.

The way Sherwood wants us to play will suit Westwood and I think Sanchez better as instead of a static attack they'll have runners off the ball. You can't pick a forward pass if there's no movement hence why under PL we ended up sideways all the time. Against Albion I liked the way he was sharper to the ball and in the tackle hopefully he can keep this up my main worry is his physicality against bigger and better opposition that's where Sanchez can be better but he will need time to adjust to Sherwood's tempo of game which is more English than PL's slow football. Westwood has always been a very good passer hopefully page can continue getting better.

Lowton has been good whilst he's been back in the team and was good initially under Lambert and only dipped in form when they fell out. Hutton maybe the better defender but Lowton gave us a lot of creativity from RB. He may not have the pace to be a top player but certainly has the technique. You can coach players to be better positionally and not to get caught out. Hopefully he plays RB in the next 2 games and gives Sherwood something to think about at RB as we need compettion all over the pitch.

Sherwood has been here for 3 games and we have improved game on game hopefully this will continue. Fat Sam isn't a winner he drops excuses every time his teams get knocked out of cups but will always finish mid table ish. That's not good enough for us. Sherwood is talking about Europe already as in this season and trying to win the cup. That may be beyond us but let's have a go!

I don't know how getting a correct penalty decision is luck but if that was very lucky then we were extremely unlucky not to be out of site by half time and seeing as that was our first penalty if the season maybe we deserved this so called luck? Or it may be that we got the ball in the box more than we have done for a long time and created some very good chances so by that token were more likely to get a penalty as there was action in the box? One thing that definitely wasn't luck was the fact in the 93rd minute our LB was in the box that's all tondo with the manager and his style. Don't be afraid to lose trying to win. I for one am more than happy with that instead of being so scared of losing you never tried to win like the last incumbent.

I think most people are surprised Gil hasn't been picked of late but then most people wouldn't have had NZogbia or Gabby anywhere near the team yet both played very well tonight. One thing with a Sherwood it seems if you do it on the training pitch you will get a chance. Tonight Lowton was again very good even though playing out of position he actually looks back to how good he was around the time of his Stoke goal and this is another player who was dropped and not looked at under PL. We have improved performnaces game on game and have now finally got the result we deserved so full credit to Sherwood he is definitely in stilling his playing style into the players and this result will hopefully encourage them to have a go more next time out. For people to be questioning him after tonight is silly. Tonight was a great night and well deserved win its been a long time coming so I'm just going to enjoy it whilst I can.

You have to remember we are playing a local rival so it would be very easy for their fans to go to VP and get a ticket if there wasn't restrictions. For this reason I doubt it'll be an open general sale but if there are tickets available come next wed/thurs they may relax it a bit.

It makes me laugh how people are moaning about a system that rewards the fans who do attend and stops away fans buying tickets in the home end. There will always be special cases where people are miles away and can't attend but generally most can make it to a game but chose not too then when we have a big game they mean they can't get tickets. I've had a load of mates phone me for references and i just point out we played Stoke at home since the draw and we have 12 cup finals remaining not just a 1/4 final. The ticket office will look at individual accounts and reallocate tickets to other references it'll just take longer for you to do it.

Do we need a Lerners trust thread to slag them off instead of Randy then?

Still don't seem to have the correct privileges on my account. Do we have to wait till the box office is open?

I think you will to make it fair for people going in person so about 20 min to wait

It seems Sherwood gets every sentence examined minutely and gets a lot taken out of context. "Fail trying" obviously means if we do go down we will go down trying not sleep walking into it as we have of late. He was even picked up in his needs more time line when he meant he'd only been with the players 5 days before Stoke and was still judging what he had and who he could rely on. Nothing at all in his presser was a negative unless of course it suits whoevers agenda towards him. We have a massive week coming up hopefully we can go undefeated.

They have made the ticketing for this far too complicated. They should have just done ST holders first and able to buy say a extra 2 tickets, non ST holders who have been to 1 of the previous rounds, and the rest with a booking history this season.

Bradford allowed ST holders to buy extra tickets and now have a situation where ST holders won't get a ticket for their 1/4 final. The way Villa have done it is that every one who deserves a ticket will get one and more than likely every one who wants one will get one too.

1- Bradford's ground is 17,000 less than Villa's and 2- I suggested a extra 2 per season holder, not 6 like Bradford.

Ok mate well our ground is 42000 with 6500 away fans that leaves about 35500 tickets we have about 18000 ST holders If every ST only bought one we wouldn't have enough never mind those fans who've been to most home games without a ST. I'm a ST holder and don't think I should be allowed extra to give to who I see fit. Tickets should go to fans who've attended games. As I said I think every one who wants to go will get a ticket and they should be sold in a manner that rewards you going to all games not just a 1/4 final. The only way to do that is through the sort of system in place.

They have made the ticketing for this far too complicated. They should have just done ST holders first and able to buy say a extra 2 tickets, non ST holders who have been to 1 of the previous rounds, and the rest with a booking history this season.

Bradford allowed ST holders to buy extra tickets and now have a situation where ST holders won't get a ticket for their 1/4 final. The way Villa have done it is that every one who deserves a ticket will get one and more than likely every one who wants one will get one too.

The ticket office have been doing a client reference system for years and continually tell you to attach your tickets to your references. I know most of us didn't think they'd be necessary but the onus is on you to do it.

I like Hutton defensively but I think Lowton needs a run as he does give us better quality going forward. We aren't going to win to nil so we need to score more and Lowton created loads when he played there granted he frost a bit but I think the pros out weighed the cons and at the minute we could desperately do with another Stoke goal!! So I'd go

Guzan

Lowton Okore Clark LB

Cleverley westwood Delph

Gil Beneteke Sinclair

At LB I'd play who ever is fit in this order

Hutton Cissokoho Baker

I could have got mine on Monday but waited until today so I could sit in a group of 10. It looked like it was filling up nicely.

Hopefully he can follow Delph and stay fit and get in our team.

I think the whole notion that Lambert has left the squad mentally scarred is completely overplayed. The way some people go on you'd think that he used to threaten violence against them if they dared to attack or something and now they need counseling to get over their conditioning. We just need a win to get some confidence back.

Perhaps a better understanding of the human psyche is required. Physical violence is not the only thing that impacts on the mind.

 

That's why I said 'we just need a win to get some confidence back'.

 

Blaming the so called mental state Lambert left them in, is just making excuses in my opinion.

We'll get them to pop some pills. 

Our confidence is shot because of Lambert our play has been awful for a long time and that is a mixture of bad coaching and confidence slowly ebbing away. Saying we need a win to get some back is easy but we need to show more than just confidence. We need desire and to show more fight than what we are now. Hopefully that's what Sherwood can instill first up then we'll get the win to try to get confidence back. Benteke being a prime example he's work rate is down because of his confidence being low but if we get him to put a shift in he might get a lucky goal and go from there. Big week ahead we need to go undefeated.

This is something I've wondered. Pochetino at Spurs play a high tempo game and it took a few months for the players to get the levels up to do it all match and now I think they've got the most points late on in games where as our scoring is awful for 90 min but particularly the last 30. Who is our fitness coach?

After reading what Sherwood says into Tonights/tomorrow's Birmingham Mail he saying what I believe or maybe hope is true. That we have good players just that they're not firing on the pitch. Hopefully a full week of training can rectify some of our problems but I think the main one confidence will only come with results and decent performances.

Just out of interest if Vlaar doesn't have his worst 3 min in football for a long time would Sherwood be doing OK? The game was crap the performance was flat but if we'd come away with draw it'd be a start you can't legislate for what happened at the end so I can understand Sherwood being so low. We are about to go into our biggest week of football for a while so I just hope he can lift the players.

He didn't look fit to me he looked restricted in his movement hopefully he'll be firing come Saturday.

We aren't adrift yet we are in the bottom 3 on GD and have both the teams level with us to play at home. We just need to get that first win from somewhere. Our home form is key but strangely playing away next weekend may relax the players more.

It was right to bring Vlaar back last week as Okore was having a dip now though if Okore plays well against Newcastle he keeps the shirt if he doesn't I'd bring him back against WBA we need leaders but ultimately we need our in form players on the pitch regardless of who they are.

It seems a lot of our fans believe we are doomed to relegation. The reasons vary from their favourite manager getting the sack to our new manager not being good enough. I still think we will stay up but we haven't been bad for just a few games we have been awful for over half a season now we all wished Sherwood would wave a magic wand and we'd start playing with loads of confidence but we are still very brittle and that showed on Saturday. If we got through to half time winning I think we'd have won. Even the fans who turned up seemed on edge a little and it was a perfect game for a Stoke side who would have been hurt after their cup defeat. When Sherwood took over Spurs he knew the players so had an idea what to expect here he doesn't have that so I think now he's team is in place after a disjointed week he'll have a better idea of what formation to play. We had about 29000 fans on Saturday yet we will sell out against WBA in the cup. People need to get down to Villa Park for every game they can as the atmosphere on Saturday was flat and we need to help the players by filling the ground and creating some noise. Our home games are key to our survival and personally any one who hasn't been to or intends to go to games for the remainder of the season shouldn't bother coming to the 1/4 final or if we do manage to get to a semi be allowed tickets. This isn't a better fan thing it's more your club needs you get your finger out!