Make no mistake: Today was still a good day for Aston Villa Football Club

The honeymoon is over. We know Tim Sherwood isn't Pep Guardiola, but we also know he's no Paul Lambert, and after today, we will be able to start judging which side of the spectrum he leans toward.

Sherwood reached a point total many of us thought ludicrous after Lambert's defeat to Hull, and we still have a game to play against relegated Burnley. From the lows of Ron Vlaar's red card against Stoke City to the highs of a Wembely win over Liverpool to ruin the Gerrard birthday bash, it seems Sherwood's matches have all been astoundingly dramatic - a trend that cannot, and will not continue. With safety confirmed, the most important aspect of Sherwood's future managerial capabilities is whether or not he will be able to win the boring mid-table teams on dreary Saturday afternoons - the games where the mediocre teams are separated from the average teams, and damn, a mid-table Villa would feel so good.

Villa finally got some outside help today Spurs, and with safety confirmed, everybody at the club can breathe a sigh of relief. Providing Sherwood can lead Villa to mid-table nothingness next year, Villa's biggest game for the next calendar year lies just 2 weeks away. A victory would give Villa a place in Europe, and change the aura of inevitable failure that has been haunting Villa ever since Paul Lambert took over. Rumors of Christian Benteke being willing to stay if Villa win the F.A. Cup and qualify for the Europa League have been surfacing for the past week, and if he is convinced to stay, it would be a monumental step towards solidifying legitimacy for Sherwood's Villa.

There always seems to be one blowout loss in Villa's system every couple months, and getting it out in what is now a meaningless game at Southampton may be a good thing. Even if we had won at Southampton and home to Burnley but had our blowout game on the biggest game of the year, the entire offseason morale and hope would be tarnished. As we have seen over his short time at Villa, Sherwood's men respond well to adversity, and I fully expect them to beat Burnley next Sunday and be ready to go for the F.A. Cup final.

While Sherwood's men were humiliated today at St. Mary's, Saturday May 16th, 2015, is the day that Sherwood's survival act was completed, and just may be the day that leads Villa to an F.A. Cup victory, and starts the Claret and Blue on a trek towards Premier League and European relevance.