Newcastle United defeat of Aston Villa adds to Tim Sherwood’s despair

As the scale of the task facing him at Aston Villa became increasingly apparent, Tim Sherwood looked suspiciously like a man fighting the temptation to sprint on to the pitch and begin bossing midfield.
The scrappiest of afternoons concluded with Villa summoning no riposte to Papiss Cissé’s first-half winner, leaving their new manager in the thick of a relegation fight. Although Newcastle are safe enough in mid-table this was also a big game for John Carver with his players suggesting they are still very much behind him in the wake of last weekend’s 5-0 debacle at Manchester City.
Newcastle took the lead against the run of play. When Daryl Janmaat crossed from the right, Jores Okore failed to clear, enabling Cissé to control the bouncing ball before lashing his 11th goal of the season beyond Brad Guzan.
Although Ashley Westwood contributed some superior, impressively incisive passes from his central midfield station and Christian Benteke forced Tim Krul into a fine save courtesy of an acrobatic overhead kick, the majority of the play was shapeless and incoherent. For large parts of the first half the latest gargantuan television deal and ‘best league in the world’ hype seemed an incredible marketing con trick.
At least we had a touch of human interest in the shape of Sherwood in the visiting technical area. Bar the odd thumbs up for Westwood, Paul Lambert’s successor appeared anything but blown away by his new players. While his body language frequently screamed dismay – to the extent he sometimes looked in physical pain – a torrent of expletives poured from the mouth of a man who would surely benefit from following the example of Steve McClaren at Derby County and banning swearing at Villa.
The idea of outlawing bad language is to promote calmness and control but unfortunately this was a game low on both commodities. With Fabian Delph increasingly coming into things there were moments when he and Westwood raised the tone but then a team-mate would pass straight to a Newcastle player.
Missing the suspended Jack Colback in central midfield, Newcastle were heavily reliant on their admittedly formidable counter-attacking acceleration. Yet if Sammy Ameobi and Moussa Sissoko petrified Villa with their pace on the break at times, Carver had reason to be grateful to Krul when the Holland goalkeeper saved superbly from Tom Cleverley after the midfielder’s connection with a Benteke knock down.
Shortly afterwards Benteke had a ‘goal’ disallowed for offside. With Janmaat and a much improved Fabricio Coloccini defending particularly well in a resolutely stubborn home rearguard, which continued to hold firm even after Massadio Haïdara was carried off on a stretcher, the sense grew that it was not to be Sherwood’s day. The moment, late in the second half, when Coloccini performed wonders to block Westwood’s goal-bound shot felt emblematic.
By now he was prowling the touchline with arms folded and a fed-up frown. Happily for Carver, Villa’s football increasingly seemed to mirror their manager’s frustration, leaving Newcastle to finally gain the ascendancy.