Brad Friedel has insisted that Andre Villas-Boas did not lose the dressing room at Tottenham Hotspur.
Sherwood
Tim Sherwood has since been placed in caretaker charge and hopes he can encourage an immediate impact, starting with the visit of West Ham to White Hart Lane in the Capital One Cup quarter-final on Wednesday night.
Technical director Sherwood takes charge of the first team for the first time hoping to show he is a long-term candidate to succeed Villas-Boas.
The former Spurs captain is eager for his side to show their quality against the Hammers, who beat Spurs 3-0 in the Premier League in October in one of a number of results which resulted in Villas-Boas' sacking.
"When you lose your manager, it's a change and you've got to listen to a different voice, but I'm hoping to get a few messages across in a short space of time so we can get a positive result against West Ham," Sherwood told Spurs TV.
"It's a huge game, especially on the back of what they did to us at the Lane. It was disappointing.
"We have to get out there on the front foot and we have to impose ourselves on them as soon as we can during the game."
Former England bosses Fabio Capello, Glenn Hoddle and Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino have emerged as contenders for the vacant position in north London but
Swiss side FC Basel have denied claims that Tottenham have contacted them about their coach Murat Yakin.
But Englishman Sherwood hopes West Ham will be distracted from the cup trip by the need to preserve their top-flight status, but is fearful following the reverse on October 6.
"Hopefully they've got their concentration on Premier League safety rather than the cup tomorrow night," he added.
"We have to be patient. They got bodies behind the ball and tried to catch us on the counter-attack.
"We're aware of that. Let's just hope we can impose ourselves on them nice and early, get the crowd behind us and really be up and at them."
