Bale just made reference to his playing position on the filed - both respectively at Spurs and Madrid. Nothing more or less - predictable cliches and general bullshit in a player interview - wouldn't read too much into it, personally.
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Thing is, does Sherwood actually have any plans? While I'm sure he knew what he'd do with the team if he were to be manager (just like most of us do), that's different from having a planned strategy. I'm wondering how he could've had the latter if his job came as a surprise to him.
Essentially I think Sherwood is making it up as he goes along. His attacking play is clearly paying off more than AVB's tactics, but I still there there is deficiencies in his game and the question will be whether or not he learns and adapts in short order to overcome those deficiencies. I think that if he can show that he is capable of that then Levy will not need to worry about a new manager because you can bet Timmy is a lot cheaper than someone like Van Gaal. Obviously it would mean he'd also be required to have achieved something at the end of this season like you say.
Probably, although if TS does really well, say a top 4 finish and the EL to boot its going to make us look shit if we ditch him. We are already seen as a bit of a joke after getting rid of Harry who was getting us top 4 finishes, replacing him with AVB of all people after the Chelsea fiasco then kicking him out after 18 months. If we remove TS after less than a year and he has been successful we will look like a joke club even if Van Gael is his replacement. A bit of stability in terms of players and manager is my favoured option.
Sherwoods a funny one for me. In the league the results are excellent, undeniably, but Im far from convinced on performances.
Take Palace, had a week to prepare - and put in one of the worst first halfs in memory, had to get stuck into them at half time before seeing a better performance.
Another game would have seen us with a mountain to climb in the second half.
I think Sherwood needs to show improvement. A full 90 minutes of decent football (not even 'amazing') to start, some consistency. And asap some tactical know-how as well.
He is on a hiding to nothing IMO. He has no time to learn and develop, he has to do it now.
Take Palace, had a week to prepare - and put in one of the worst first halfs in memory, had to get stuck into them at half time before seeing a better performance.
Another game would have seen us with a mountain to climb in the second half.
I think Sherwood needs to show improvement. A full 90 minutes of decent football (not even 'amazing') to start, some consistency. And asap some tactical know-how as well.
He is on a hiding to nothing IMO. He has no time to learn and develop, he has to do it now.
Totally agree. If we were playing a better team on Saturday, we would have been 3 goals down at the break. It was a bit of a worry when Sherwood mentioned the bad first half was down to "some players flagging". They had 7 days fucking rest. WTF???
Good and bad, we where shit in the first half but good in the second, Eriksen said the manager was angry with them at half time, the second half looked like we had a new team of players. Kind of fits in with what I have been thinking all along, as much as tactics are important we need the fear of god put in them when they don't perform and have to give Tim credit for that, if he can motivate the players we are half way there, makes you wonder what AVB's team talks where. The real test will be when we have our injured players back and go against the bigger teams, at the moment we have been playing smaller teams with in many cases the B team.
Thats the continuing worry for me. Most games seem to fall to "If we were playing that team on form/someone better we would have regretted it..."
Stoke is the only game we looked the part for 90 minutes for me, and they are appalling right now.
Utd was a tremendous result and for an hour or so a top performance, but by the end it was nail biting stuff (and since they have lost again and again...)
WBA, Southampton, Palace all could have gone comlpetely against us.
And then there is the cup games...
Im not trying to slate Sherwood, rather temper expectations. IMO 12 points from 15 is outstanding - but performances suggest that if there isnt a pretty sharp improvement the collection of points is likely to drop off...
I had to giggle to myself when I saw Timmy's interview on football focus the other day when he said "I know how it works, don't win and you're out of the job". Maybe he overestimates the level of friendship he has with Levy!
Yeh probably but if Verts, Sandro and Paulinho come back ASAP we should start to improve significantly, although by then we will be facing better teams so I guess we can begin to guage TS's abilities a bit more. I still think we are playing significantly better than under AVB but that isn't to hard, towards the end we looked like West Ham.
It'll be interesting to see what he does when Vertonghen comes back........will he have the guts to drop Dawson?
Either of Dawson or Chiriches would be an improvement but I suspect that it will be the Romanian who would make way.
I don't want to criticise Sherwood, and based purely on results, he has been fantastic. I do think that our upcoming matches will be telling from a tactical perspective.
Swansea haven't been great this season, and their home record is surprisingly awful but they still play possession football. I would be sorely tempted to play with Adebayor alone up top and look to this match as tailor made for counter attacking football. They pose a threat but it has been blunted by Michu's injury. If Sherwood can come away from that match, and get something against City, who frankly are rampant, then his stock will rise considerably.
I do want to see more from him than what I suppose called be called 'old fashioned' football. I want to see him look at the opposition, like Pulis does (Christ I feel sick complimenting him but he does his homework), and be a proactive manager rather than a reactive one.
Swansea haven't been great this season, and their home record is surprisingly awful but they still play possession football. I would be sorely tempted to play with Adebayor alone up top and look to this match as tailor made for counter attacking football. They pose a threat but it has been blunted by Michu's injury. If Sherwood can come away from that match, and get something against City, who frankly are rampant, then his stock will rise considerably.
I do want to see more from him than what I suppose called be called 'old fashioned' football. I want to see him look at the opposition, like Pulis does (Christ I feel sick complimenting him but he does his homework), and be a proactive manager rather than a reactive one.
This choice of words really confuses me, as I tend to see managers who set up their teams to nullify opponents as 'reactive' (reacting to the approaches of other coaches in their lineup), whereas managers who set up to play their own way as 'proactive'.
And FWIW, while I like it when teams play pragmatically and look to exploit opposition strengths and weaknesses in-game to some extent, I'd prefer us to generally be a 'proactive' team (as I understand it) and force our opponents to bend out of shape to deal with us, rather than vice versa.
I would play 4-5-1 not due to defensive mindset but because it suits our players more than 4-4-2. Soldado has been poor the last few games and Defoe is on his way but we have lots of attacking midfielders. Put Townsend on the left, Lennon on the right, eriksen in the hole and bentaleb and dembele In The middle and that's a very attacking line up but with more in the middle than 4-4-2. Prefer Sandro and paulinho in the middle when they are fit obviously.
I should have been clearer. I prefer a manager to have studied the opposition enough so that more often than not he doesn't need to react during the game due to not being prepared.
Redknapp was, I thought, someone who often had to change a game plan, and AVB has never really been someone to be overtly flexible in his system. But if I look at managers such as Mourinho and to some extent Ferguson, they would, given the opposition revert to a secondary system.
I understand that you would prefer a manager to play their own way but that surely only works with the correct personnel....Woolwich away for instance wasn't exactly the time to give Bentelab his wings, or to stick to 4-4-2.
Fuck this guy if he lets Holtby leave over Sig.
Utter nonsense. A formation is not a t-shirt for fuck's sake.
So your saying you believe we have the quality of strikers to justify a 4-4-2. Defoe is leaving, Soldado is doing nothing and Kane is very young, and we have great ability in the midfield and maybe that is the way to go.