25: Tim Sherwood, Blackburn Rovers, Merlin’s Premier League Kick Off Sticker Collection, 1998

As another January transfer window closes there has been a more sedate atmosphere than in previous seasons but there have still been some interesting highlights. The summer’s mass exodus to Saudi Arabia has not been replicated and Jordan Henderson has in fact left his former paymasters for Ajax having failed to singlehandedly convince the nation to openly accept the LGBTQ+ community. Eric Dier, something of a forgotten man at Tottenham Hotspur, has joined former teammate Harry Kane at Bayern Munich who seem to be looking to replicate Spurs by failing to win the league title. Back in North London the German striker Timo Werner has returned to a Premier League he only left eighteen months ago with, hopefully for Spurs, a better understanding of the offside rule than he had at Chelsea. I’m sure this all makes sense to someone somewhere even if these moves bear more than a passing resemblance to the glory days of Championship Manager.

In the summer of 1995 the Premier League was awash with statement transfers and even more intriguing rumours. Fresh from winning the Scudetto and Coppa Italia with Juventus there was chat that out of contract Italian superstar Roberto Baggio was on his way to Queen’s Park Rangers to replace Newcastle United bound Les Ferdinand. In the end QPR plumped for Mark Hateley to provide an experienced foil for a young Danny Dichio and duly finished second bottom. Where foreign stars did arrive they achieved mixed results. Dennis Bergkamp joined Arsenal following indifferent form in Serie A and doubts over his ability from the likes of Stuart Pearce and while the Dutchman proved to be a phenomenal signing the likes of Andrea Silenzi, Marco Boogers, Regi Blinker, Faustino Asprilla and William Prunier provided mixed to poor returns for their new clubs. It was perhaps this which inspired the cynicism at reigning champions Blackburn Rovers when the opportunity to sign Zinedine Zidane presented itself with chairman Jack Walker proclaiming “why do you want Zidane when we’ve got Tim Sherwood?”

Sherwood was one of Kenny Dalglish’s first signings for Rovers when he spent £750,000 to bring the midfielder to Ewood Park from Norwich City ahead of the inaugural Premier League season. Thanks to the goals of fellow new signing Alan Shearer newly promoted Blackburn punched well above their weight and finished fourth in the league as well as reaching the semi-finals of the League Cup. Sherwood was promoted to the captaincy following the retirement of Kevin Moran and Rovers finished as runners up in the 1993/94 season. The arrival of his former Norwich colleague Chris Sutton ahead of the 1994/95 campaign gave Rovers the most expensive attacking pairing in the Premier League and Sutton and Shearer did not disappoint with an incredible 58 goals in all competitions as Sherwood’s men claimed the Premier League title. The skipper was key to a combative and honest dressing room atmosphere stating “we weren't frightened to upset each other, but we were only doing it for a reason, because we wanted to win and we wanted to make each other better and we wanted to make the collective team better and that's what we managed to achieve.” Clearly the means justified the ends.

At the advent of the 1995/96 season Zinedine Zidane’s only notable honour was as part of Bordeaux’s Intertoto Cup winning side although his phenomenal talent was gathering attention across Europe. He was part of the France side which reached the semi-finals of Euro 96 and, having been passed over by Blackburn, went on to join Juventus in the summer of 1996. Ten years later, when Zidane ended his career by headbutting Marco Materazzi in the World Cup Final, he had won two Serie A titles, two Champions Leagues, two Intercontinental Cups, two Super Cups, two Supercopa de Espana titles, La Liga and the Supercoppa Italiana with Juventus and Real Madrid as well as the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000 with France. He also collected the 1998 Ballon d’Or and scored one of the greatest Champions League Final goals of all time. All in all not a bad return. In the meantime Tim Sherwood’s only major club honour remained the 1994/95 Premier League title. Blackburn struggled to replicate their phenomenal rise to the peak of English football and Sherwood moved to Tottenham Hotspur in 1999 as Rovers headed unceremoniously towards relegation. He spent four seasons with Spurs before short spells with Portsmouth and Coventry City yielding only a League Cup runners up medal and a First Division title with Pompey. 

Both men turned to coaching following retirement with Sherwood joining Harry Redknapp’s backroom staff at Spurs in 2008 and Zidane answering a direct request from then Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho to involve himself more at the Bernabeu in 2010. They both found themselves in the club’s hot seats in due course with Sherwood first to make his managerial bow with Spurs in December 2013 following the sacking of Andre Villas-Boas. He by no means disgraced himself, with the club finishing sixth in the Premier League and Harry Kane emerging as a key player in the closing stages of the campaign, but was relieved of his duties by Daniel Levy in May 2014. He took up the reins at a struggling Aston Villa in February 2015 and led the club to the FA Cup final at Wembley as well as securing survival in the Premier League, however, the 2015/16 campaign started badly and Sherwood was sacked after just one win in ten games. Bar a brief, fairly dismal, spell as Swindon Town’s Director of Football Sherwood has not managed since.

As Villa turned to former Arsenal squad player Remi Garde Real Madrid sacked future Villa manager Rafael Benitez and called for Zinedine Zidane. Despite missing out on the La Liga title by one point to Barcelona he led Los Blancos to their eleventh Champions League trophy and Real retained their title the following season whilst also collecting the Super Cup, Club World Cup and La Liga winner’s medals. In his third season he completed a hat trick of Champions League titles, becoming the first manager to do so in consecutive seasons, thanks to some Sergio Ramos shithousery, Gareth Bale brilliance and Loris Karius catastrophes. Zidane shocked the footballing world by announcing his resignation just a few days after but was back at the Bernabeu less than a year later and, by the end of the Covid-affected 2019/20 campaign, picked up another La Liga title as well as the Supercopa de Espana. After a surprisingly trophyless 2020/21 season Zidane once again resigned. Eleven trophies in just over five years.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and, of course, if Jack Walker had known that Zinedine Zidane would achieve half of what he did it’s certain he would have found a way to accommodate the Frenchman alongside his club captain. Then again that could have come at the expense of angering David Batty so perhaps it wasn’t worth it. What Tim Sherwood achieved with Blackburn Rovers in the mid-1990s cannot be sniffed at and his fledgling managerial career did not quite come with the luxury of squads boasting the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric. Then again Zidane even managed to look better in Sherwood’s patented sweater and gilet combination. Comparison really is the thief of joy.