I was scared.
I was frightened.
And, even now, I’m still lying. I’m making excuses.
I was wrong.
I was cynical. Sceptical. Snobby, even.
I was fed up with the downward spiral the club had taken since 2010 and I truly believed that the hasty appointment of Tim Sherwood was the final nail in a coffin Randy Lerner had worked so long and hard to put together around Aston Villa.
I was wrong.
In a way, I don’t think Sherwood should’ve gotten the job, no. Not with five months of experience. Not with Villa in the relegation zone. Not after just two days of searching for Paul Lambert’s replacement – the most important decision in the owner’s tenure.
In a way, I’m glad he did.
The risk paid off. But a risk – a massive bloody risk – it still was and I won’t apologise to Lerner for rolling the dice, for lumping it all on red with our final 20 quid.
I will, however, apologise to Timmy.
He deserves it. He was written off so utterly and confidently before he even showed up at Bodymoor Heath. He was laughed at. He was spat at. He had his personality attacked.
Let’s get one thing straight. Tim Sherwood is a buck eejit. He is a geezer, he does play up to his straight-talker persona, he still delivers cringey interviews. It’s irrelevant. It means nothing.
What has happened at Villa Park since Valentine’s Day has been nothing short of a love-in.
Legends Kevin MacDonald and Stiliyan Petrov have joined the manager on the sideline, Christian Benteke has decided to be Christian Benteke again, and the football alone has been so far removed from what fans have been accustomed to in B6 that you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve been knocked out and woken up in Catalonia somewhere. And that’s results aside.
Villa are attacking teams, they’re controlling games, they’re making a complete mockery of Paul Lambert’s curl-up-in-a-ball-and-wince tactics that you actually have to feel some shame for forgetting that this way of life was possible. You have to salute Sherwood for not only making us believe it again, but in actually executing it.
Hands up: I wanted Tony Pulis in. I wanted a safe, reliable, no-risk appointment just to get us through until the end of the season. I wanted to know no other way of life but keeping our heads above water.
Tim Sherwood has come in and changed all that thinking entirely. He’s come in and, with nothing miraculous, no transfers, no special tricks, he has turned Villa into a football team again. A team that goes out to win games. A team that gets the best out of its best players.
People have sympathised with Lambert – if only Benteke had started scoring earlier and all that. Christian Benteke’s form – his nine goals in the last nine games – are not down to the Belgian deciding to show up. They’re down to the manager and the team deciding to use him.
Yes, they’re deciding to use their best player. Their biggest threat.
Against Spurs, he had the most touches out of anyone else on the field. Under Lambert’s last few months, he stood on his own watching a back 10 try to cling to a 0-0.
Fabian Delph has transitioned from our only player to one of the best midfielders in the country. People laughed at Sherwood when he said that a few weeks back. They haven’t seen Villa nearly enough if that’s the case. Delph is no longer the only player trying to make things happen in the team. He has support. He has men coming forward with him, other men looking to get on the ball. And he has kicked on another level because of it.
Jack Grealish is no longer playing for the U21s, sitting in the stands, tweeting. He has been thrust into the action and he has been nothing short of exceptional. Another man who draws defenders, not content to pass the buck, another man who opens the whole game up. Someone who makes things possible.
Sherwood hasn’t created these players. He’s just used them. He’s used them and gotten the best out of all of them.
Heck, even Tom Cleverley has upgraded from pitiful to grand.
Had someone like Pulis come in, Villa would be no further forward. They’d be more effective at shutting teams down but they’d be going nowhere. Just resting in a safe house for the time being.
Instead, Villa went to Spurs and didn’t just beat them, dominated them. And Sherwood celebrated because he is the manager of Aston Villa now. The days of Gérard Houlier’s despicable welcome home parade around Anfield during a 3-0 loss are long gone.
We went to Wembley and played Liverpool off the park. Beat them in the FA Cup semi final and advanced to our first decider in that competition in a decade and a half.
We went to Manchester. Again, we dominated. A Brad Guzan cock-up, a Kieran Richardson cock-up leaked two goals. With minutes to go, we were denied a penalty to win it; the champions, City, spared a red card for their goalkeeper and they went down the other end and grabbed an undeserved winner.
So we turned around and just beat Everton the next week playing the sort of confident football that actually makes you think Arsenal will have a few problems ahead of them in the final on May 30.
The sort of football that actually makes you think that anything is possible. And the sort that actually makes you look forward to next season.
That, alone, has been far too rare.
That, alone, is why Sherwood deserves credit.
It’s why there’s a very real and inverse correlation between his success and the rate of piss-take vines circulating in his honour.
As the weeks go by, there’s a sobering realisation that this guy isn’t a performing jester, that he’s actually a decent football manager. And, with that, there’s a more daunting realisation that, in fact, none of his critics know very much, if anything, about this game.
Tim Sherwood deserves respect now.
He has restored my faith in being a football fan again.
He’s restored my faith in proving people wrong.
He’s restored my faith.
And, for that, I was wrong.
For that, I thank him.
For that, I’m sorry.
