Sign up NOW for our daily Villa newsletter direct to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Tim Sherwood has told his former Aston Villa players to keep fighting and not throw the towel in.

Sherwood was sacked by Villa earlier in the season after failing to stop the slump in form, that run of form has continued - but he believes they can STILL stay up.

He told talkSPORT: “ I don’t think they can throw the towel in, I really don’t.

“If they can get one, then back-to-back wins – [Last season] we went to the Lane [White Hart Lane], we beat Everton and the complexion of the table just changed.

“They have to believe they can do it, let’s not start looking around with the blame game, they need to stick together and get that first result on the board and then build on that. Some of the clubs above them are in freefall.

“Those fans – they are the best I have ever worked with. They pulled us through last season.

“When I went there was 13 games left and it didn’t look good for us. Without them we wouldn’t have got what we got.

“To lose a lot of experience and players like [Christian] Benteke for instance, who scored 67% of the goals last year, it was a major blow and he was going to be very difficult to replace."

Man of the match

Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will start in 8 Cancel Play now

Protest opinions