Could Tim Sherwood’s stay as Tottenham boss be a short one?

Could Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood be heading for the exit door this summer?

Tottenham suffered a 4-0 defeat at London rivals Chelsea on Saturday and Spurs boss Tim Sherwood was very critical of his own players after the defeat.

The loss leaves Spurs four points behind fourth-place Manchester City, but the Citizens have three games in hand.

Critical

Spurs boss Sherwood was very critical of his team telling Sky Sports: “We aren’t going to finish top-four if you can’t beat the top teams. It ain’t going to happen, you’re miles away unless you beat the top teams,”

“You have to pick up some points. All right, we beat [Man] United and Everton around us, but you can’t rely on rolling over the smaller sides – it does not work out like that. We did all right in patches, but there are too many blips – you are talking about fourth, people at the club, but wake up.”

Unlikely

A top four finish this season was always going to be a difficult task, despite Spurs big spending during the summer. It looks very unlikely that Spurs will finish in the Champions League spots this season. The competition for a top four place this season is probably the toughest in years and it seems Tottenham not yet good enough.

Struggled

Spurs have struggled badly against the teams in the top-four this season. In fact Tottenham have lost five out of the six games played against the top four teams this season and shipped goals at an alarming rate. To be fair to Sherwood though, he was not in charge for all of those games.

Tottenham may have spent big in the summer, but it is all too apparent they are not quite yet ready to compete with the big boys at the top of the Premier League table.

Rookie

Tim Sherwood was handed the Tottenham managers job in December when former-Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas was sacked by the north London club. Like a lot of people I thought that the former-coach would only be given the role on a temporary basis, or maybe until the end of the season.

Instead Spurs decided to give Sherwood an 18-month contract, slightly longer than I expected. Maybe the Tottenham board and chairman Daniel Levy were persuaded by some of Spurs early displays under Sherwood. However the Sherwood appointment smacked of a short-term one.

The former-Blackburn midfield had no managerial experience and seems out of his depth at a top-six club. Sherwood seems to talk a good game, but the results have not indicated that he will be a long-term success at White Hart Lane.

The Tottenham boss should have a lot of football knowledge from his playing days and from coaching. He may well turn out to be an excellent Premier League manager in the future, but he does seem to have been thrown in at the deep end in north London.

If he had started his managerial career further down the ladder, then maybe he would have been able to learn his managerial trade without the pressure of managing a club looking for a top-four finish in the Premier League.

At the moment the job just looks too big for the former-Blackburn captain. It really would not surprise me if he does leave Spurs at the end of the season.

High-profile

Rumours persist that Sherwood will be replaced by a high-profile European boss in the summer. The name that continually gets linked with Spurs is that of Holland boss Louis van Gaal.

The veteran Dutch boss has already stated that he would like the challenge of managing in the English top-flight and even went as far as mentioning Tottenham as a possible destination.

Van Gaal is certainly high-profile having managed Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich. The Dutchman has picked up silverware wherever he has gone and would be the sort of stellar name that would probably excite Spurs fans.

A big club needs a high-profile boss who is capable of working the media and attracting world-class players and currently there are few signs that Tim Sherwood is that boss.

Summer

The future of Tim Sherwood as Tottenham boss is very much in doubt and it really would not be a surprise if Spurs opted for a new boss in the summer. Tottenham need continuity, but it does not look like their current boss is capable of delivering what they yearn for and that could cost him his job at the end of the season.

Should Tottenham keep Tim Sherwood beyond the summer?