Blog: Three and easy?

Looking ahead to the Swansea City game, it feels surreal to think that Aston Villa have won the past few games. After years of drudgery and doubt, many fans are thinking there's a good chance of a result, and that's a great sight to see.

Confidence, as many managers will tell you, is the key to getting a team to play well or, to be more precise, to the best of their abilities. Whilst many have considered Tim Sherwood a fairly brash character, few can doubt the results he has achieved, turning Villa from a timid and self-doubting group to a team that seems able to take on the world.

What Villa must do, however, is to avoid complacency. Being expressive on the pitch is a great thing, but there has to be an equal level of discipline and cover amongst the team. Simply speaking, there's little point going all guns blazing if you can't retain a shape - against the bigger teams, that's football suicide.

If Sherwood's Villa can put Swansea to the sword, they will achieve two things. Firstly, they will have another three points, taking them a step closer to safety. Secondly, they will be able to go into April with more confidence - something they will need when facing the two Manchester clubs and Tottenham Hotspur, along with fellow strugglers Queens Park Rangers. If Villa can take at least six points from those games, there's a chance that they can be within touching distance of survival.

As Sherwood has said before, the fact that Villa are embroiled in a relegation battle is not something the team are really set up for. This isn't a massively physical team who can grind out wins based on simply not conceding, although that appeared to be the route Paul Lambert ended up taking towards the end of his tenure. Villa, whilst far from the biggest flair team in the league, are very much a team that needs to be trying to win games at least - not least because of defensive frailties, but also because the team is top heavy, and it is fairly foolish to be defensive when your best players are in the final third.

Speaking of forward players, the recent renaissance of Gabriel Agbonlahor has been a joy to watch. Agbonlahor, a player who has received fairly constant criticism from a section of the fans, has shown that being able to be played as a striker - his favoured position - reaps dividends. That Villa's number 11 has been playing in a wide role has obviously influenced his ability to contribute as a player, and whilst Agbonlahor was playing wide in his earlier career, asking a man to be both creator and finisher is fairly foolish, almost logically impossible.

Getting back to Villa as a whole, seeing the spark on the pitch - and hearing about it off it - is exactly what Villa needed at this point. Changing managers mid-season always poses a risk but, if things progress as they have done in recent matches, Tom Fox's choice to bring in a new boss may seem less like the hiring of an inexperienced youngster, and more like a masterstroke.

You can follow Matt Turvey's regular opinions at his own site, Aston Villa Life at http://www.astonvillalife.com, via the site's Twitter account @astonvillalife, or via his own Twitter account @mturvey_star.