Back to the future

Tim Sherwood has kick started his time in charge of Tottenham with a victory at Old Trafford, this came after a slightly uncertain, but promising start. Sound familiar? That's because it is. Andre Villas Boas started in a similar fashion, victory at Old Trafford for him - the first for Tottenham in over 20 years - won a lot of undecided supporters over. Sherwood is a cockney, and he seems a funny character, making jokes in his press conferences, enjoying a seemingly healthy relationship with the media so far. Tactically he's returned to a more basic, traditional 4-4-2 formation, he's been quoted saying things like; "It's a simple game isn't it?", and has been credited for bringing the best out of Adebayor, by using that most treasured of football man management techniques of putting his arm around his shoulder. Does all this sound familiar? Again, the answer is yes, because this kind of management style has been made famous by AVB's predecessor Harry Redknapp. Harry took over from a foreign manager (Juande Ramos) who, after a bright start, which included winning the Carling Cup, the club's first trophy in nine years, was sacked after a poor start to the season when he struggled to get his ideas a across to a new crop of players, brought in after the club had sold their best player, at the time Dimitar Berbatov. The deja vu's just keep on coming with Sherwood replacing AVB in similar circumstances. Tim has even been portrayed in certain areas of the media as Harry mark II, when asked about this, he said; "That's got to be a compliment, hasn't it?. "I wouldn't mind following his career and I wouldn't mind being a pound note behind him as well. "I am not trying to be Harry Redknapp but it is a simple game, though, isn't it? "If you can't pass the ball to your own team-mates, then you have a serious problem because you are going to have to keep on defending." Harry couldn't have put it better himself, I recall quotes from him when taking over at Spurs saying; "It's no good eating a bowl of pasta if can't pass the ball to your team mates", when asked about his players diets.

Maybe it's all a bit simplistic to be labelling Sherwood as the new Harry Redknapp, time will tell. He seemed to adapt his tactics slightly for the United game by asking Roberto Soldado to drop in and help the midfield in order to stop them from getting overrun, which was a good move. Next up is the North London derby at the Emirates in the 3rd round of the FA cup, if he can mastermind a positive result in that match, then he will certainly win over a lot of fans for the time being. Our last 3 results at the Emirates have been defeats by scorelines of 5-2, 5-2, and 1-0. In the latter match at the beginning of the season, AVB set the team up defensively, we crowded the midfield and made it difficult for Arsenal, but at the same time, we never looked like scoring in the whole 90 minutes. In the 5-2 defeats we were far more open, as the scorelines suggest. Judging by Tim's performance as manager so far, I think we can expect a more open game. Under Harry, playing a more open style we drew 4-4 and won 3-2 there, to go with 3-0 and 5-2 defeats. Personally I'd prefer to see us go there and attack, it may give us more of a chance of losing heavily, but at the same time, it's likely to be the best way for us to get a good result.