Ex-Swindon Town man Conor Thomas labels Tim Sherwood experiment as "strange"

Former Swindon Town midfielder Conor Thomas has described Tim Sherwood's brief role as director of football "a strange one".

Thomas only spent one season as a Swindon Town player after joining in the summer of 2016 from Coventry on a free transfer, but it was a sad one as the Robins were relegated from League One.

Poor early-season form led to the appointment of ex-Tottenham manager Tim Sherwood as director of football. 

At the time, chairman Lee Power said Sherwood would be in charge of tactics, team selection, transfers and team talks, despite the fact then-head coach Luke Williams was still in his position.

Despite beating Charlton 3-0 in his opening game, Sherwood could not turn around Swindon's success and, by February 2017 Sherwood insisted he was only brought in to help with the recruitment side of things.

Thomas is now in India with ATK after having his Swindon contract cancelled by mutual consent despite impressing David Flitcroft in pre-season. He was even an 83rd-minute sub in the opening-day win over Carlisle.

In an interview with Planet Football, Thomas opened up about what life with controversial Sherwood was like.

“It was a real strange one,” Thomas says.

“We had a manager Luke Williams who was in (sole) charge until November.

“Tim came in and took a couple of training sessions, but we were never told what his role was going to be, what was happening or even who was going to be picking the team.

“As footballers you just get on with it. Anyway, Tim took charge of the first couple of games and we got good results. But I think he was just there to drive recruitment really, it got to January and we bought in five or six loan signings, and obviously that policy didn’t work out.

“In the end he left his position and I think he’s come out and said he was just helping out a friend, the chairman (Lee Power). I don’t know if he ever had an actual job title or anything which is why the situation probably looked like a mess from the outside.”