2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[BlueStevie35]

Its a cardinal sin to blame Carlo on this forum.

Inspite of questions about players' mentality , the underlying question is 'Should Carlo be doing better than he is?' And the answer should be "Yes".

Those in favour of his approach make it sound as if we have championship 11 and every team is PL level top 6 hence its OK for Carlo to get away with anything. There seems to be no training ground output on the field either.

A couple of fluke wins vs Southampton and WBA mean we're 6th but we deserve absoluteky F-all this season with how we have been playing. 8th is what our calibre is.

And I am absolutely certain things won't simply change next season, which is the assumption. 70% of the squad will still be the same. Lets see how much longer people blindly support whatever Carlo does.

As far as I am concerned, Brands needs to be jailed and Carlo can do one if he still wants to hide behind the excuse that players are not good enough.

Give this team to Rogers, Pochettino and see what they do with improving the confidence.

Talking out your hoop on this point, Ancelotti has had plenty of criticism even from people who back him when justified, like with last night

 

[Drico]

But our midfield last night consisted off allan gomes iwobi and Davies, 3 of that 4 where big money signings, players who have spent the vast majority of there Career at top teams playing in europe

Allan - a crock; Gomes - a failure at Barcelona, drummed out and humiliated to the extent that he questioned his mental health; Iwobi - a failure at a declining Arsenal: Davies - the less said the better.

One of those four players has not been fit. Two of the other big money signings were disastrous acquisitions by a director of football who really hasn't covered himself in glory. Both were objected to be plenty on here. People need to accept: our midfield is just not good enough and our recruitment has, at times, been scandalous. The Iwobi transfer in particular is, arguably, the worst bit of business since Davy Klaassen.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Allan has been out much of the season. It's arguable he still isn't fit. We don't need to be sports scientists to see that. For me, he has been the poorest of our four acquisitions this season as he just hasn't been available for any consistent run of games.

No, we can't just buy a whole new team - but the bitter truth is we won't be making the top four without buying at least half a new team. Buy three or four more this summer and you depend less on the proven failures who populate the majority of our current squad.

As long as the manager must field a side that regularly consists of Davies, Iwobi, and Gomes, not to mention some of our other one in threes, we will often come a cropper against the likes of Burnley or Fulham - because that is their level. Carlo has shown he is capable of beating the best sides in the league when he's got options. So the club has a decision to make: back the proven winner or continue with the proven failures. It's that simple.

Allan is an odd one because he does seem to take a long time to get back to fitness. He started the season so well, got injured, then was poor for a run of games but came back to top form in the Leeds home game when he was the best player in our team by a mile, kept it going for a few games before then breaking down again against Leicester at Christmas. Now he seems to be taking a long time to come back again. If we can have the player we had in the first few games of the season and Leeds then great but the injured version isn’t particularly useful.

We probably needed Allan and James to be fully fit most of the season to have any chance this year but unfortunately it’s just been knock after knock for both of them to the point that I’m not sure either of them has been fully fit since that first international break.

 

[blue to the bone]

Just checking. Has he been sacked yet?

 

[hktoffee]

Allan - a crock; Gomes - a failure at Barcelona, drummed out and humiliated to the extent that he questioned his mental health; Iwobi - a failure at a declining Arsenal: Davies - the less said the better.

One of those four players has not been fit. Two of the other big money signings were disastrous acquisitions by a director of football who really hasn't covered himself in glory. Both were objected to be plenty on here. People need to accept: our midfield is just not good enough and our recruitment has, at times, been scandalous. The Iwobi transfer in particular is, arguably, the worst bit of business since Davy Klaassen.

McGeady, Alcaraz and Niasse we used to have them.

 

[Lanolin]

Allan has been out much of the season. It's arguable he still isn't fit. We don't need to be sports scientists to see that. For me, he has been the poorest of our four acquisitions this season as he just hasn't been available for any consistent run of games.

No, we can't just buy a whole new team - but the bitter truth is we won't be making the top four without buying at least half a new team. Buy three or four more this summer and you depend less on the proven failures who populate the majority of our current squad.

As long as the manager must field a side that regularly consists of Davies, Iwobi, and Gomes, not to mention some of our other one in threes, we will often come a cropper against the likes of Burnley or Fulham - because that is their level. Carlo has shown he is capable of beating the best sides in the league when he's got options. So the club has a decision to make: back the proven winner or continue with the proven failures. It's that simple.

Allan was out for 2 months, he’s been back for 1 month. If he isn’t fully fit by now then he clearly has an underlying fitness issue and so was a very questionable signing.

I’m not being funny but ‘if we have better players than everyone else then we’ll win more’ isn’t really a great argument. The manager has to work with what he’s got and get performances out of them. I simply cannot accept that our squad is so poor that we haven’t been able to outshoot a single opponent for 18 games and get completely overrun in midfield by people like kalvin Phillips, Harrison Reed and josh brownhill.

 

[ForeverEverton]

The U23s wouldnt do half as bad as some of these frauds....

I dont know why in a transition season, about our 30th one of them in a row, keep the players you know are good enough and in fill with the promising U23s/U18s. They just can not be any worse......

 

[MikeH72]

Palace might, being at Goodison and all but we’re a different beast away

For all the points about how crap the defeats have been, it’s worth pointing out that every defeat we’ve had this season has been by a 1-2 goal margin, it’s also worth pointing out that we haven’t had a big goal glut win since the 4-0 over West Ham in September

We have won one league game by a +2 goal margin all season, against 10 man West Brom. Liverpool, Leicester and Brighton are the only teams we’ve beaten by more than one goal. It’s why our goal difference is the worst in the top half by a country mile.

 

[LocalNative]

The U23s wouldnt do half as bad as some of these frauds....

I dont know why in a transition season, about our 30th one of them in a row, keep the players you know are good enough and in fill with the promising U23s/U18s. They just can not be any worse......

I'd even throw Onyango in the midfield to provide more energy and desire. We're far too predictable in there and slow to move the ball. We bought two centre mids in the Summer and probably need about 2 this Summer again.

 

[arch stanton]

there's some damp pish stained mattresses around today

 

[MikeH72]

Just an appeal for a bit of perspective. We're currently 6th. Not 16th.

Well if we were 16th then this thread wouldn’t exist because he probably wouldn’t still be in a job.

 

[Bluepablo]

there's some damp pish stained mattresses around today

Come back next week after we’ve beaten City!

 

[LocalNative]

Just an appeal for a bit of perspective. We're currently 6th. Not 16th.

Really incredible that we are too given how shoddy we've been this season. Extra perspective that we could be 8th going into the international break.

My concern is the performances which have not been good enough. Currently only Burnley, Palace, West Brom and Sheff Utd have had less shots per game than us - we're far too negative.

 

[MikeH72]

The very worrying thing for me is that the players still look like they’re being sent out there with the tactical instructions “you’re better at football than them, just beat them”. Well it’s been firmly established at this point that we’re not.

 

[Stephenlloyd]

I’m pleased with have him as our manager, like the majority of our fans, I would guess. And I get his hands have been tied a bit with injuries lately.

But he does come out a lot of the time, with the same message after every home defeat. People aren’t learning, including him.

forget the Man City game, but it will be interesting to see what he does v palace. Because if he goes back to 4CB’s and tries to nick a 1-0 it will tell you he doesn’t trust the midfield/attacking midfielders to create or control games. And that goes for Richarlison & DCL as well who have been very inconsistent.