Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood claims Tuesday night’s relegation showdown with QPR is the “biggest” game of his short managerial career to date.

The Villans host their fellow strugglers in a classic ‘six-pointer’ as they look for revenge for October’s 2-0 defeat at Loftus Road.

Sherwood has replaced Paul Lambert as Villa manager since that game but they continue to languish just above the drop zone and know defeat to the 19th-placed R’s would see them drop into the bottom three.

However, Sherwood has told his side to forget about trying to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Joey Barton, Charlie Austin and Sandro.

The former Spurs boss said: “I think this is the biggest game that a lot of these players have ever played for this football club.

“This is without doubt the biggest game of the season for Villa and possibly one of the biggest in a number of years.

“We’ve got different types of players, you look through QPR’s side and they’ve got a lot of players who are men – with a lot of experience in there.

“We’ve got a few men in there – but we’ve got a lot of pretty much icing-on-the-cake players and I’m trying to get that mentality into them to forget about digging out results.

“It’s not what we’re cut out to do.”

QPR go into the game on the back of a morale-boosting 4-1 win at West Brom while the Villans lost 3-1 at Manchester United last time out.

Villa are 2.10 to beat QPR (3.75) with the draw 3.30.