Tim Sherwood has a tough task ahead of him as the new manager of Aston Villa.
They are third from bottom in the Premier League, have not won in 10 matches, have one goal in their past eight matches and only scored 12 league goals all season.
So the obvious area he needs to focus on is his team’s attack. Villa will not stay up if they do not start scoring more than a goal every second match.
In that respect, Sherwood may have lucked in, joining Villa shortly after they signed winger Scott Sinclair on loan.
Because here is a player like no other in Villa’s squad, except for maybe the erratic Frenchman Charles N’Zogbia.
Sinclair provides creativity; he puts defenders on the back foot when he gets the ball because they are wary of his brutal pace and dribbling ability. Take a look at his 2010 goal for Plymouth against Barnet.
He is an outlet on the counter-attack because he can take on several players at once, and that will be a real asset for struggling Villa.
The question is whether he can get back to the level he reached at Swansea City three seasons ago.
Sinclair, sent on loan six times by Chelsea before leaving the club, was the central point of Swansea’s team that earned promotion to the Premier League in 2010/11, scoring 19 goals.
He netted eight and was a standout player in their first top-flight campaign.
But it feels like he has been on a sabbatical since then.
He cannot be blamed for joining Manchester City but, like so many young English players – Shaun Wright-Phillips and Wilfried Zaha, to name just two – his career has taken a nosedive through lack of football, with just 20 league appearances in two-and-a-half seasons.
If Villa give him regular games, two things are likely to happen.
1) He will get back near the level that made Manchester City want him in the first place; or 2) He will score and set up enough goals to help Villa stay up.
Ideye shows value of patience
A player who is now thriving, having been given a chance by his club, is West Bromwich Albion’s Brown Ideye.
The Nigerian striker, the club’s record signing, was ready to leave the club at a huge discount in the January transfer window.
He stayed and now has four goals in three games for a revived West Brom.
Three games, and he has gone from flop to hero.
It just shows the value of having patience with a player, especially a foreigner arriving in the Premier League for the first time.
Several factors on and off the pitch can affect a player who is trying to fit in at a new club, including issues that simply being paid lots of money cannot fix.
With a large price tag, Ideye was expected to perform immediately, and plenty of players have been written off before they had a chance to adapt.
Who knows how close West Brom got to ditching him, but new manager Tony Pulis is now reaping the benefits.
twoods@thenational.ae
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