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Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood happy to pile pressure on his team

New Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood is dismayed after conceding a last-minute penalty against Stoke CIty
Image: Tim Sherwood: Talking Premier League survival

Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood admits he has been encouraged by his side's determination to avoid the drop from the Premier League.

Sherwood has lost both games since taking over from Paul Lambert earlier this month but says he will continue to put pressure on his players over the last 11 games of the season.

Villa face West Brom at home on Tuesday night and Sherwood is convinced a win over their local rivals could spark a late survival surge by his side.

"When you start implementing something on the training field and when you see that improvement it does give you encouragement," said the former Tottenham boss.

"But zero points out of two games could easily have been six and could have been four, but it was nothing, it was zero. 

"So we just have to get on with it, what are you gonna do? We have to bounce back and try and get three points as soon as we possible can.

"Pressure should be on the players already, if they are not feeling the pressure being second bottom of the league, and playing for a massive club like Aston Villa, then something is seriously wrong. They need to feel the pressure.

"You try as much as you can to take the pressure off them but we are in the Premier League, we are in a big league, the best league in the world, and they play for a massive football club, the pressure should be on them to keep this club in the league. The pressure is certainly on me, I feel it.

'Scramble'

"We have lost the last seven Premier League games, scored 13 goals all season, something has to change, that has to change very, very soon."

Sherwood has already said six wins would avoid relegation to the Championship but now he is looking to pick up points from those around him at the bottom ofr the table.

"My theory is it won't be six wins if we beat Burnley and QPR. Anyone in this league can beat anyone at any given time - we have seen that all season.

"We are going into every game thinking we can win and we need to, if we can't win we need to try and scramble something out of those games. At the moment we haven't managed to do that in the first two games that I have been here. 

"I think we are capable. We are very unfortunate to have no points out of them two games but that is where we find ourselves, so we need to move on and we need to move on quickly and the first and foremost is tomorrow's game. 

"That is all we are worrying about, winning that game tomorrow night, if we do that it will take us out of the relegation zone and we will never look back."       

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