Rose didn’t deserve to be sent off, says Tim
TIM SHERWOOD trusts the system and believes in his English players.
After this setback, a nasty 5- 1 home defeat against Manchester City, he will know there is much work to be done at White Hart Lane.
On Sherwood’s watch, this team will play 4- 4- 2, or a variation of it, as part of his masterplan to turn Tottenham into a top-four team.
Certainly, he was right to think that his team were hard done by when left back Danny Rose was sent off in the 49th minute for a foul on Edin Dzeko.
But he was wrong to believe there would have been a way back for his team after Sergio Aguero’s 16th-minute opener. They were not even close to competing here.
City, who pay wages of £233m a year, are operating at a different level. In his heart, Sherwood will know that and yet he is reluctant to modify his adventurous approach.
‘You have to hold your hands up because they worked us around the pitch,’ admitted Sherwood.
‘They are the best team in the league by a country mile. They are the champions, without question.
‘ They don’t want to score one and shut up shop, they want more.
‘They entertain, they push on and it’s not great for an opposition manager. They put us to the sword and that’s the way I want football to be played.’
Sherwood has sat for hours in the coaches’ office with his assistants Les Ferdinand and Chris Ramsey discussing the whys and wherefores of holding midfielders. Sherwood was moulded by Kenny Dalglish, brought in to provide leadership at Blackburn Rovers as they charged towards the Premier League title in 1995.
Dalglish relied on the legs of Sherwood and David Batty in the centre to feed the willing runs of Jason Wilcox and Stuart Ripley down either wing.
Sherwood’s philosophy is not much different, shadowing Dalglish’s great side 20 years on. It will be difficult to replicate Blackburn’s success, though.
Against the likes of Swansea, Crystal Palace, Stoke and Southampton, pretty much anything can work with the quality of players Sherwood has at his disposal. City are something else.
If ever there was a case for playing two screening midfielders, a tactic redefined by Brazil’s Falcao and Cerezo at the 1982 World Cup, then the visit of City was it.
Mousa Dembele and Nabil Bentaleb were stationed in the centre of Tottenham’s midfield, passengers as City’s players kept the ball in circulation. Dembele only made it to the break.
At times White Hart Lane felt haunted, with the ghosts of Liverpool’s 5-0 victory here filling the air.
That’s what a £233m wage bill buys, bringing in the world’s best talent as City charge on with their plans to win the Quadruple.
They know they are on the way and their fans were singing about another trip to Wembley where they will compete with Sunderland in the Capital One Cup final on March 2. But they are taking care of business in the Barclays Premier League after another stylish display against Spurs.
The moment Rose was sent off, harshly as it happens, for bringing down Dzeko, City moved effortlessly through the gears.
‘Andre Marriner got the decision right initially, but the linesman changed his mind and said it was a penalty,’ offered Sherwood.
Nothing though, not even the correct call, would have altered the outcome here.
Even with 11 on the pitch Spurs had been pumped, schooled in a mesmerising game of keep- ball by the brilliance of Jesus Navas and David Silva on either flank.
Top is the default position for a team with City’s extraordinary financial clout and the target for Pellegrini’s team is to stay at the summit.
For Sherwood, he’s just discovered what it’s like to live on the edge.