Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood has stated the club need to win six more matches in order to stay in the Premier League come the end of the season. For a team that has won only five so far in 2014-15, that certainly sounds ambitious.

It's a steep target; that's victory in half of the remaining 12 fixtures. Looking at the games to come, it's likely that Sherwood is hedging his bets on Villa winning at St James' Park on Saturday, for starters. Following that are matches against West Brom, Sunderland...

No one said it was going to be easy. Reviving a failing Aston Villa and maintaining the club's status as an ever-present member of the Premier League is no small task, and after his first 90 minutes in charge of the team, new manager Tim Sherwood will have no illusions regarding the size of the job in hand. A 2-1 defeat to Stoke now makes it six successive league losses.

Sherwood's debut started brightly but ended bitterly, with Villa conceding two minutes into injury time. It was an awful goal to...