Tim Sherwood Adds Needed Experience to Aston Villa Staff with Kevin MacDonald

With 13 league games left to the end of the season—13 cup finals, as the manager has already described them—Tim Sherwood does not have much time to take stock at Aston Villa, to sit back and survey the lay of the land.

With Villa currently in the relegation zone on goal difference, Sherwood needs to start picking up results, and quickly, with Saturday’s game against Stoke City a glorious opening opportunity. As such, he needs his back-room staff in place as soon as possible.

On Friday, another piece of that puzzle (if not the final piece, then certainly the biggest) was put into place, as Kevin MacDonald returned to the club as Sherwood’s assistant manager.

MacDonald previously spent nearly two decades at the club in a staff role between 1995 and 2013, even serving as caretaker manager for one brief spell in 2010. He was also assistant manager for a number of years, under David O’Leary and then Martin O’Neill, meaning his new role is one he should adapt to very quickly—something that suits Sherwood and his needs right now.

"I am still giving thought to the assistant manager,” Sherwood had said on Thursday, via Sky Sports. “Whoever I bring in will be the correct one for myself and the football club.

"I'll make sure I'll get that one right. I would rather not jump into it. I want someone for the long-term at the club, to help me build it."

Appointing an assistant barely 24 hours later would hardly seem to tally with those comments, but perhaps Sherwood saw what he wanted in MacDonald. The coach certainly has a wealth of experience, with a reputation for nurturing young talent and a familiarity with the pressures of the top job (he was briefly manager at Swindon Town) that, on paper at least, will make him a valuable addition to the staff.

He also has insights into how things were done during Villa’s more successful period in recent history, something that might well prove useful under a new regime that has similar ambitions but lacks the same experience and achievements as O’Neill had.

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Sherwood has brought performance analyst Seamus Brady to the club from their time working together at Tottenham Hotspur, but it remains a concern that the core members of his staff during his previous managerial stint at White Hart Lane have not joined him at Villa Park.

Chris Ramsey, a man with an impeccable tactical reputation (he has long served as a marker on the Football Association’s various coaching courses), is now manager at Queens Park Rangers, where Les Ferdinand—Sherwood’s second-in-command at Spurs—is the sporting director.

QPR are the team keeping Villa in the relegation zone, with both sides now involved in a mad scrap to the finish line. Sherwood finds himself in opposition to his most trusted colleagues in football, pursuing a target (survival) that it seems unlikely both will be able to achieve.

Ramsey has the tactical reputation, but Sherwood has long proclaimed the greatness his own man-management skills and, in striker Christian Benteke, has the sort of quality attacking player that every club at the bottom of the division would love to have.

Alan Shearer, Sherwood’s team-mate at Blackburn back in the 1990s, told the Villa website this week:

"

One thing on his side is that he is one of the few managers that managed to get [Emmanuel] Adebayor playing. So if he can do the same for Benteke then Villa should be able to stay in the Premier League.

Everyone throughout their career has a crisis in confidence and it looks as if Benteke has had his recently. You've got to believe in your own ability. He's done it before and I'm sure he'll do it again with the guidance of Tim.

"

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It remains to be seen if Sherwood can pull a similar trick on Benteke as he did on Adebayor, or whether his experiences this time around lead us to revise our opinions on that period at Spurs. It is worth remembering that Adebayor had been ostracised and embarrassed by Andre Villas-Boas before Sherwood was asked to step in—the striker would likely have had a point to prove and a desire to prove it under any new manager at that point.

Sherwood was wise to give him that opportunity, but giving the manager credit for the Togolese’s revival seemed more of a leap than the deserved praise he received for giving some younger faces their opportunities.

That is something to discover over the next 13 games. Sherwood remains confident in the strength of his coaching abilities, with MacDonald (along with previously appointed first-team coach Mark Robson) perhaps now adding a layer of experience and becoming a respected sounding board for ideas and different approaches.

"I'm confident in what I do on the training field, I don't have to dress it up any differently,” Sherwood added. "I really think [the players] are buying into what I'm trying to tell them, It's not the Krypton Factor. It's a gradual process, Rome wasn't built in a day and it's going to take time.

"We know we're running out of time and we're aiming to get the best out of this group as soon as possible, starting Saturday.”