Confusion reigns under Sherwood’serwood s up- and- down role at Swindon Town

Southend United manager Phil Brown was as confused as anyone ahead of Tuesday night’s League One ( third tier) game against Swindon Town. The reason for his head scratching is not what he describes as Town’s “unusual playing style” but who is in charge of his opponents.

Tim Sherwood’s arrival at the County Ground has resulted in league- wide confusion as to how the former Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur manager’s role as director of football works, especially as he was said to be in charge of transfers, team tactics and even picking the team.

While popular in Europe, it’s unusual enough in the English game and odder still given the fact that the Robins signed Luke Williams to a five- year contract in March after a successful period as caretaker manager. “Not a demotion” was the description of the head coach role and Williams for his part made all the right noises, saying he was keen to learn from the new man.

Maybe he is used to it. Williams has had an unusual time at Swindon. He has gone from first- team coach to assistant manager – first under Mark Cooper who took them to the playoff finals in 2015 and most recently under Martin Ling – and then on to head coach via a caretaker role.

In between that he has also been assistant to Chairman Lee Power in his unusual role as chairman- caretaker manager after Ling stepped down last season. Interestingly, Power described himself at the time as more of a director of football than a traditional chairman.

Power has now installed his old pal Sherwood – the pair were teammates at Norwich City, in business together and Sherwood was best man at Power’s wedding – in the upstairs role. It’s apparent that the upstairs element might not have resonated with Sherwood.

In his short time at Swindon, Sherwood led the team talk but was in the stands to watch his team win their first game in 10 by beating Charlton Athletic, but took to the dugout during their FA Cup first- round replay loss to nonleague Eastleigh before watching on from the director’s box at Spotland to see his team lose 4- 0 to Rochdale in the league on Saturday. What he does in the next game will be anyone’s guess.

Even before the serial chairman Power took over the club back in 2013, Swindon has become a rather unusual outpost in the English game and something of a managerial graveyard while the club still hold the ignominious record of being the only team to have shipped 100 goals in a Premier League season and becoming the first team to slip from the top flight to the last tier of the Football League in the Premier League era.

It was only a few months after that when The Football Fever report, done on behalf of the Littlewoods Football Pools was released in January 2007. It named Swindon Town as the fifth most stressful team to follow of the 92 league clubs.

Nearly a decade later life can’t be any less stressful for Swindon fans – no matter where Sherwood watches from.