Belive what you hear, and Aston Villa could be hosting Swansea City in Tim Sherwood's last game as manager on Saturday.

With a terrible start to the season leaving Villa in the relegation zone, reports suggest that Randy Lerner is ready to push the panic button, and a loss to the Swans could signal the end of Sherwood's tenure. 

Disastarous form is pushing Sherwood towards exit door

Whilst things started so well with an opening day win against newly promoted AFC Bournemouth, the season has quickly gone downhill, with Villa not recording a league win since then. That's 76 days ago now, and eight league games.

Since that win, they've drawn once, and lost seven times in the league. Five of those defeats have come in the last five games, with this particular losing streak a main cause of concern for the manager.

Although they have gone down to heavyweights Liverpool and Chelsea in that time, there have been opportunities missed, home losses to Stoke City and West Brom being examples of this.

All of this has heaped pressure on Sherwood, who could be out of a job come Monday morning, especially if points are dropped against Swansea.

Swansea could be there for the taking

Any new manager would face an immediately difficult task of taking points from away trips to Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur, before Manchester City visit Villa Park later this month. This hard looking fixture list makes Saturday's game a must win, some suggest. 

However, there can be positives gained from the fact that the Villans may never get a better chance to beat Swansea, with Gary Monk's men out of form. 

Having not won since defeating Manchester United 2-1 at the end of August, they're low on confidence, and that may be something that Sherwood looks to target, in a bid to raise the confidence of his own players.

Team news

There is some good news for the hosts regarding injuries, with Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ciaran Clark set to come back into the squad. 

Jores Okore will be hoping to make the bench as his recovery from a long term knee injury reaches it's conclusion, whilst Brad Guzan is sweating over his place in goal after a series of errors.

Most Villa fans will be hoping that Jordan Amavi comes back into the starting 11, after being inexplicably dropped for Kieran Richardson against Chelsea last week.

For the Swans, Ki Sung-Yueng is likely to return to the starting XI, replacing Jack Cork. Wayne Routledge is in contention for a place in the squad, after missing last Monday's loss to Stoke with a calf problem.