How I learned to stop worrying about Tim Sherwood and just watch Villa

After the loss to Newcastle last weekend, I was just as down in the dumps about Aston Villa as I was after the Hull City loss. Before it actually happened, I would've never suspected I could get that low again. Even if Villa do get relegated, the feelings wouldn't have matched those after the Hull loss. But then the Newcastle loss happened as I was right back in that place. It's not so much that we were going down, it's that we were going down without a fight. And after the Newcastle loss, it seemed like even a change of manager wasn't inspiring that fight.

I've never been particularly thrilled about the Tim Sherwood hire, but I was very hopeful that the least he could do was use his brand of insanity to fire up the team enough to keep them in the Premier League. After the Newcastle loss, I was doubtful of that. But after Tuesday night, I'm back to being optimistic. Sort of.

I'm still very nervous and anxious about the FA Cup match against West Brom. While Villa were the better team in the league match and should've had at least one more goal in the first half, actually getting that win required a little luck. There's no way Ben Foster will play that dumb again. And can Villa play that well again? A loss to West Brom in the FA Cup would completely undo all the happiness and relief that the league result created, at least for me.

I have no idea if Tim Sherwood can keep Aston Villa in the Premier League. The first two matches didn't seem really any different than Paul Lambert's Villa. But the celebration after Christian Benteke scored the penalty seemed different. Maybe I'm completely misreading the situation, but it seemed way more jubilant than it would have under Lambert. It was a last minute win against West Brom, so it would've been celebrated heavily no matter what. But the way everyone ran over to Matthew Lowton when the penalty was awarded, or the reaction from the bench when Benteke scored it, it just seemed different.

After Tuesday night, I'm willing to go along on the Tim Sherwood ride. Even if in the deepest part of my brain, I am still a little worried that he's gonna drive us right off that cliff and into the sea.