If the rumors coming out of Villa Park are to be believed, Tim Sherwood has two games left to save his job.
If the confident cockney fails to get a win against either Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this weekend or when the team hosts Swansea City a week later, he will be told to pack his bags. Which would probably please most level-headed Villa fans, even the most ardent supporters of Sherwood could not justify keeping him on after what would be one win in 10 games.
The man rumoured as a replacement in the likely event he does not get the needed results is former Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers.
It is a prospect that divides opinion among the faithful. Despite his experience as a Premier League manger, it could still be a risk for the Villans.
With Sam ‘guaranteed survival’ Allardyce now at Sunderland, there are not many decent available mangers for Villa to choose from, unless Carlo Ancelotti fancies a serious challenge.
One of the main risks of hiring Rodgers is whether it is too soon for him to get back into management. Having only left Anfield less than two weeks ago, is he ready to be trusted into a relegation battle?
But the big question is – has he lost it? He was a good manager at Swansea, good enough that Liverpool believed he was the right man to take them forward. If this is the type of manager Villa could potentially get then it is hard to see how the fans could be against it.
The argument could be made that at Liverpool Rodgers found his ceiling. While he might not be the right man to manage a top four hopeful, he could be more suited for the expectations at Villa and even take them as far as Martin O’Neill did.
Looking at win ratios, something Sherwood was very proud of before his time at Villa, we can see how his time at Swansea stacks up to previous Villa managers. Managing 96 Swans games, Rodgers left with a 40.6% win rate, although that does include a season in the Championship it is still a respectable effort, his career average so far is 44.5%.
Villa’s current man in charge has a 38.5% win rate so far at the club and a career average of 44.4%. His predecessor, Paul Lambert has a dire 29.6% win rate with Villa, though his long-term ratio is much healthier at 39%. While absolutely awful it is a lot better than the man he replaced, Alex McLeish, who had an incredibly poor win rate of 21.4%, less than half his career average of 46.1% – although this was propped up by his time at Rangers and the Scotland National Team. Gérrard Houllier has a better win rate than his successors with 32.3%, however, it is a stark difference to his career average of 51.6%.
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Villa’s most successful manager of late, Martin O’Neill, unsurprisingly has the best win rate in the past ten years with 42.1% – similar to all of the managers mentioned though, it is lower than his career of average of 51.3%. But like McLeish, the figure is heavily helped by his stint in Scotland with Celtic.
Even at Liverpool Rodgers had his moments, famously taking the Merseysiders to second place in 2013-14. Yes, he had Luis Suarez, but he was still the man at the helm and left with a 50% win rate. It will be the moments such as a 6-1 defeat to Stoke City at the back end of last season, and the spectacular way they lost the title that may worry Villans the most.
Despite his flaws, the Northern Irishman still has experience managing a team of Villa’s calibre and at this point the fans cannot be too fussy in the quest for survival.
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