Sherwood: We won't celebrate safety
Aston Villa will not be celebrating their Barclays Premier League survival despite getting the "job done", according to manager Tim Sherwood.
Villa are not even holding an end-of-season awards dinner this year and will not throw their players a party to mark their escape from the drop, because Sherwood believes such a lowly finish is nothing to celebrate for a club of their size.
"It's 'job done', as far as I'm concerned," said the former Tottenham boss.
"They brought me into the club to win Premier League survival and we did that. The team had won five games in 25 before I came in. We needed to match that to stay in the division and we've managed to do that."
Sherwood insists only victory over Arsenal in next week's FA Cup final will merit a celebration.
"I think it would have been in bad taste to celebrate like that and I don't think a club like Aston Villa should be celebrating escaping relegation, to be perfectly honest," he said.
"It's a big relief but if we're celebrating escaping relegation every year then we aren't doing something right.
"I'm not sure that escaping relegation is a good season for Aston Villa.
"We'll only have an end-of-season celebration if we win the FA Cup.
"We've got to look higher than just staying in the Premier League. Obviously we're not going to go from that into a Europa League team next season but I think we need a consolidating season and to build the club and take it in the right direction."
The former Tottenham boss has promised he will field a full-strength side for Sunday's finale against relegated Burnley, despite his own team having already beaten the drop and with the FA Cup final against Arsenal to consider six days later.
"We want to go and win," he said. "We owe it to our fans, who have stuck with us under difficult circumstances and been fantastic and helped pull us over the line.
"So we owe it to them to go and put in a performance on Sunday, send them home happy and give them some optimism to want to come back here next season.
"It's a full house, we want to put in a good performance but there'll be no resting of players. We're looking to go out with a win."
Burnley will bid farewell to one veteran player when Steven Reid takes his final bow, but 37-year-old Michael Duff will remain as part of the team next season.
Clarets boss Sean Dyche has confirmed that Northern Ireland international Duff will have a part to play in the 2015/16 campaign - which will be his 12th at Turf Moor.
Dyche said: "We'll be speaking to Michael over the summer and he has made it clear he wants to continue playing.
"We spoke about where we felt he was at and he has done terrifically well this season. He'll be an ongoing part of what we do should something be agreed."
Dyche meanwhile hailed Reid as a "fantastic professional" but said he had not attempted to change the former Republic of Ireland international's mind.
"Reidy has been a fantastic servant to a few different clubs over the years and he's someone I personally class as a good friend as well as a fantastic professional," said Dyche.
"He's done exactly what I brought him here to do because he knew the game time would be minimal compared to previous seasons.
"But I wanted him to be around the group and show the true professional that he is and he has done that during the campaign."
Dyche said he was determined for Burnley to go out on a high before their return to the Sky Bet Championship.
He said: "We owe it to the fans, who have been terrific all season especially those who have travelled to away games, and we really want to go out on a high."
Source: PAR
