Tim Sherwood sacked: Remi Garde early favourite to take charge after Aston Villa axe manager 10 Premier League games into season

Former Tottenham boss took charge in February

Tim Sherwood has been sacked by Aston Villa (Getty Images)

Aston Villa began the search on Sunday for their fifth manager in as many years after confirming the dismissal of Tim Sherwood after just eight months at the helm.

Sherwood’s reign ended the morning after Villa’s sixth straight defeat at home against Swansea City and the 46-year-old learned his fate after being summoned to the club’s Bodymoor Heath training ground.

A parting of the ways had seemed inevitable after Saturday’s 2-1 loss which left Villa with just one point from nine Premier League matches since their opening-day win at Bournemouth. A club statement said: “The board has monitored the performances closely all season and believes the results on the pitch were simply not good enough and that a change is imperative.”

Sherwood’s assistant manager Ray Wilkins, first-team coach Mark Robson and performance analyst Seamus Brady have also left the club although Tony Parks will stay on as goalkeeper coach.

Kevin MacDonald has taken the reins as interim manager with Rémi Garde, the former Arsenal defender and Lyon coach, already in talks about potentially replacing Sherwood according to media reports in France. Canal Plus, for whom he works as a pundit, tweeted yesterday that the 49-year-old Frenchman was “in pole position to replace Tim Sherwood” though it is probable Villa would want to consider other candidates as well.

David Moyes and Brendan Rodgers feature among the bookmakers’ early favourites for the post – Moyes might have been sacked as Real Sociedad manager had they lost at Levante but instead they won 4-0.

Whoever takes over faces a daunting task as Villa ended Sunday bottom of the league after Sunderland’s win over Newcastle United, and will face Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City in their next two league matches after Wednesday’s Capital One Cup tie against Southampton.

Speaking on Saturday evening, Sherwood described Villa as a club “in a hole”, which is largely the same position they were in when he took over from Paul Lambert in February. He did an impressive job initially by leading them to safety and to the FA Cup final, which they lost 4-0 to Arsenal.

Sherwood had promised in the spring that Villa would “never” again be in the relegation mire if they got out of trouble, yet the loss of his two key players, captain Fabian Delph and striker Christian Benteke, did terminal damage to that ambition, and his dissatisfaction with some of the players brought in with the proceeds of their sale led to tensions behind the scenes.

In what turned out to be his valedictory press conference on Saturday, Sherwood’s message was pretty clear as he spoke about Villa’s “lack of quality” and said that his players “can only give us what they can give us, we can’t turn them into superstars”.

Sherwood did not have the sole say in the transfer dealings that brought in 13 players last summer, with sporting director Hendrik Almstadt and head of recruitment Paddy Reilly also involved.

Thus, though he was able to recruit experienced players like Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott, he missed out on other targets – including Tom Cleverley, Aaron Lennon, Esteban Cambiasso and Emmanuel Adebayor – and Villa instead brought in four players from Ligue 1 and two from La Liga for a combined figure close to £40m. The result is a squad short on Premier League knowhow.

It seems no coincidence only two of their recent foreign recruits – Jordan Ayew and Idrissa Gana – featured in Sherwood’s final starting XI against Swansea, when Kieran Richardson was playing instead of £10m French left-back Jordan Amavi.

That said the Villa hierarchy could equally ask why Sherwood, who earned a reputation for improving young players at Tottenham – and, to his credit gave Jack Grealish his big break last season – had not made more of players like Jordan Veretout, a midfield partner of Paul Pogba in France’s 2013 FIFA Under-20 World Cup-winning side.

Sherwood also received criticism for his tactics from some quarters and his team selections increasingly called to mind a man banging around in a dark room in search of a lost key. That said, the Villa crowd had yet to turn on him as they did Lambert, despite the booing that greeted their defeat on Saturday.

As for a potential successor, Garde could be expected to get more out of the club’s young French talent. As for Moyes his position in Spain remains precarious.

Meanwhile, there may be an investigation into the tunnel fracas at the end of Saturday’s game, sparked by a row between Richards and Swansea defender Federico Fernandez. Television replays suggested Fernandez put his head into Richards’s face when the pair squared up in the first half and the Villa defender is said to believe he was verbally abused by the Argentinian.