LONDON: New Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood suffered an agonising 2-1 home defeat by Stoke City in his first match in charge of the struggling Premier League club on Sunday.
Sherwood celebrated Scott Sinclair's first-half goal in typically passionate fashion but his emotions were very different when Victor Moses stroked home a stoppage-time penalty to condemn Villa to a sixth successive league defeat.
"I am bitterly disappointed," Sherwood told the BBC.
"I didn't think we deserved to lose the game but we didn't do enough to win it. We have to go and do a job and forget any anxiety.
"It will be a work in progress, there is a lot of work to be done and I've told the lads that. We have to be brave and get on the ball."
Villa started brightly and were rewarded with Sinclair's 20th-minute header but Mame Diouf equalised on the stroke of halftime to set the hosts' nerves jangling.
The game looked to be heading for a draw when Villa defender Ron Vlaar brought down Moses in stoppage time and was sent off after receiving his second yellow card.
Moses dusted himself down to convert the spot-kick and leave Villa second-bottom in the table.
"There is no point in me getting a big stick out and banging them on the head with it," Sherwood said.
"It is about me getting the best out of them for the remaining games," added the former Tottenham Hotspur manager.
"We will improve. It is a very short amount of time to get instructions into them but we will get better and we need to keep this great club in the Premier League. We are not thinking about going down."
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