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Aston Villa continue to crash with a Lerner at the steering wheel!

By on October 26, 2015

Tim Sherwood has become the fourth manager in just as many years to face the axe at Aston Villa as American businessman Randy Lerner ran out of patience with the Englishman following the Villains defeat at home to Swansea City on Saturday.  Lerner himself has been trying to sell Villa for over a year, but the right buyer has yet to come along and as time goes on, the flood of funds going into the club is coming to a Holte End! Perhaps the club should come with a “L plate” above their club logo!

Sherwood was reportedly given two games to save his job or face the sack, and lost both to Chelsea and Swansea. Andre Ayew’s late strike buried Villa 2-1 this weekend and sealed Sherwood’s fate. The game flipped on its head in the sixty-eighth minute when Gylfi Sigurdsson sailed past Brad Guzan to launch Swansea’s comeback and bring them level with the hosts. £8.5million striker Jordan Ayew had opened the scoring for the Midlands side but his brother bagged an eighty-seventh minute winner to ensure that Villa suffered a sixth consecutive league loss. Villa are without a win since the opening day of the season and Sunderland’s 3-0 victory over local rivals Newcastle United on Sunday left Villa rooted to the bottom of the Premier League table. The two Tyne-Wear clubs share six points, while the West Midlanders are on a miserly four.

Tunnel Vision!

The battle of the brothers won’t be the last we hear of Swansea’s win, as both brothers may be implicated in an investigation into a fracas in the tunnel following the game. The fight was no Clarkson verses Top Gear producer or Pacquiao against Mayweather, but the tunnel was seen to be shaking as stewards rushed in to calm tensions after the win eased tension on Swansea manager Gary Monk. Most of these footballers probably don’t use the London Underground, but the ‘tunnel shaking’ sounds like a normal commute during rush hour on the Northern Line! The Football Association will study referee Neil Swarbrick’s report before deciding whether to take any action, though Jose Mourinho’s antics at Chelsea are keeping them busy enough.

Swansea defender Federico Fernandez and Villa captain Micah Richards were also involved in a confrontation during the first half and had to be separated by fellow team-mates. There would only ever be one winner to that fight, though — Richards is the one player in a claret and blue shirt you do not want to have a punch up with on a Saturday evening.

Where did it all go so Ron?

Tim Sherwood’s summer didn’t start off in the best of fashions, kicking off the ever-so-slightly warmer months with a 4-0 FA Cup Final defeat to Arsenal at Wembley. However, this was just a drop in the ocean to what Villa were really going to lose in the proceeding months of the transfer window. Tom Cleverley, Ron Vlaar, Shay Given, Fabian Delph and most importantly Christian Benteke all departed Villa Park over the summer, leaving Sherwood with an ever weaker side than the one he had barely saved from relegation by the skin of their teeth and the squad he inherited on Valentine’s Day from Paul Lambert. It’s rather ironic that the former Tottenham Hotspur boss was appointed on the fourteenth of February of this year, a mere eight months ago, as the 46-year-old was told to get his suffered a frightening heartbreak just a few days before Halloween.

What is truly scary, though, is Villa’s form. Not only are they bottom of the league and four points from safety, but Sherwood’s spell in charge was the shortest of any permanent Villa manager. He oversaw just twenty-eight games in all competitions and only won 26% of his twenty-three league matches in the driving seat.

Replacing the old guard with the new Garde!

Sherwood Forest may have been cut down at Villa, but Lerner is sure to want to Garde his investment away from the Premier League scrapheap, as relegation this season will cost him millions on his asking price with the new TV deal set to boast the values of England’s top clubs next season. The current odds-on favorite to take the steering wheel from Sherwood is former Lyon manager Remi Garde. The 49-year-old Frenchman is 1/4 on to become the new boss at Villa Park in the coming days according to the bookies, ahead of Real Sociedad gaffer David Moyes and the recently unemployed Brendan Rodgers.

Moyes has faced some pressure from the Spanish fans and media after a poor start to the La Liga season, only to gain a morale-boosting 4-0 away win over Levante to silence some critics — who have very vocally changed “go home, Moyes” in English at the club’s home matches. Former Arsenal forward Carlos Vela unveiled his goal-scoring ability with a brace in that timely victory for Sociedad. However, French TV station Canal Plus — who coincidentally employ Garde as a pundit — are reporting that Moyes is in advanced talks with Villa about the vacant managerial position.

For the moment, Under-21 manager Kevin MacDonald has stepped in as an interim manager, having served the role in between Martin O’Neill’s sacking and Sherwood’s signing last February. The next boss needs to be given (where’s Shay when you need him?) some sort of realistic time to turn the bus around. Further investment in the January window could be a short term fix.

Villa’s next game is against Southampton in the League Cup on Wednesday and The Saints will be without attacker Saido Mane after he was suspended for a red shortly after grabbing the equalizer in Southampton’s 1-1 draw with Liverpool over the weekend. This time around, the Senegalese danger man won’t be able to repeat his quick fire hat-trick against Villa from last season’s 6-1 win for Ronald Koeman’s side.

Homepage photo credit: Ian Wilson from London, England (Villa Park) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

About Richard Lewis

Richard Lewis can relate almost anything to football and quite often does! You may have seen Richard's previous ideas and work in the BBC Match of the Day Magazine, from 2011 to present. He is a Manchester United and England fan, but has gone to see Leyton Orient play with his O's season ticket in the 2013/14 campaign. Aside from football, Richard has written articles on Doctor Who and studies English Language and Linguistics at the University of Westminster. Aspiring sports journalist.