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Tottenham Hostpur manager shortlist: Tim Sherwood

Kicking this list of possible replacements for the today-departed Andre Villas-Boas off is an internal solution available to a chairman who hates paying through the nose for staff. Mr Tim Sherwood, come on down.

Shaun Botterill

Tim Sherwood, Technical Co-Ordinator at Tottenham Hotspur

Career Record: N/A

Accomplishments: In tangible terms, non-existent. Tim Sherwood has never managed a professional football club at any level up to this point in time. The sole reason why Daniel Levy is probably currently optioning him as an interim solution at this moment in time is that Tim has a longstanding coaching connection to the club, which has seen him take control of the reserve side for many years and more recently fulfill the role of Technical Co-ordinator, ensuring that all tiers of the Tottenham hierarchy are joined-up in their approach to tactics and coaching. He is widely accredited with having contributed to the recent successes of Spurs' U21 sides and for singling out prospects like Tom Carroll and Harry Kane as being pre-eminent talents early on.

Before He Was A Manager: Sherwood enjoyed a football career spanning 20 years as a watercarrying midfielder, kicking off with a two-year spell at Watford and peaking with captaining Blackburn to a league win in 1995. He was signed up to Spurs by George Graham in 1999, where he struggled to make much of an on-pitch impact before being released to the First Division to play for Portsmouth and then Coventry- his time at Tottenham was most notable for spawning the time-honoured terrace chant, "Tim Sherwood, Sherwood, he isn't very good, Tim Sherwood, Sherwood".

Tactical Analysis: Again, the fact that he hasn't managed a professional side before makes it difficult to envisage exactly how Spurs would line up under his stewardship. The youth and reserve sides he oversaw ( albeit in very much a background sense) alternated between 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3, playing broadly similar football to what Spurs have been aiming at for the past two seasons (but marked by a lot higher rates of goalscoring). As U21 football is absolutely nothing like Premier League football, it's really difficult to draw anything concrete from this.

What Else Can He Bring To The Table?: Really, this hiring would be all about consistency. Sherwood has been part of the Spurs setup since 2008, surviving the cull of Harry Redknapp and his backroom staff last year on account of the fact that Daniel Levy was apparently impressed by his coaching nous and was keen to groom him for movement up the backroom ladder. Sherwood has been a presence on every Spurs training ground over this period of time, and thus will have maintained close interpersonal relationships with all of our existent squad as well as our brighter prospects. He knows already what all of our best players can do and thus could hit the ground running from day one, ensuring some degree of continuity in match preparation.

Oh, and he's already on our payroll, so we wouldn't need to pay a compensation fee. So... there's that.

What's The Catch?: I don't know if I've referenced this before at some point, but Tim Sherwood has never coached a professional football side. It's inconceivable that he would be anything other than an emergency interim solution to prevent an immediate collapse, at least initially.