2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[Saint Domingo]

Again though, why is Allan not fully fit? Where is this excuse coming from? He hasn't been rushed back, so whats the issue? On 12th January Ancelotti said he was '10-15 days away'. He was back on the bench for the Fulham game on 14 February. It is simply not acceptable for him to still be 'half fit' for a game taking place on 20th March. This is the PL, you can't have half a dozen games to get back up to speed every time you have a bog standard injury. The same thing happened after a minor injury earlier in the season. If that's what happens with Allan then we shouldn't have signed him. Also Gomes is no different to how he always was. I said during his loan spell that I didn't think we should sign him, 'on his day' he can look great, but his week in week out performances have always been like this. Go back and look at his thread before the injury last season, it wasn't pretty. Even when he looked really good early on he was clearly painfully slow, he just seemed to be able to work around that.

Ashley Westwood and Josh Brownhill didn't do us for pace. We were just outplayed. We all know we're slow but it's not our only problem, and making out like it is is - as i said - simplistic nonsense. 2 years ago we beat Burnley at home with Schneiderlin, Sigurdsson, Bernard etc all playing. Not exactly the Jamaican bobsleigh team, but they dominated the game and won. This insistence that it's somehow impossible to find a way to get around the fact we don't have nijinsky in the midfield is proper cult stuff.

Ive no idea on Allan, but if you compare him to the form he showed in that Leeds home game or at the start of the season he doesn’t look the same player. Maybe we shouldn’t have bought him but Ancelotti clearly wanted him.

I don’t agree with you on Gomes, yes he was up and down before his injury but he wasn’t as bad as he is now as consistently. He can barely do anything now and has declined massively.

Being slow isn’t our only problem, but it is one of them, and it can override other problems as well. It doesn’t matter if we beat Burnley in a different season with similar players. I’m not saying they can never do it, absolutely if they all play really well and the opposition don’t fancy it then of course we can win games with a really slow midfield. It lessens the chance of doing that consistently though so the days when we aren’t playing at our best and Burnley are right up for it, we get beaten easily. Top teams can still win on those days because they can at least match Burnley’s pace. We struggle to match anyone’s pace.

You’re trying to push this into me holding a single cause issue which I don’t really. There’s lots of problems, and I’ve said elsewhere Ancelotti hasn’t got everything right with selection or tactics this season. In my mind though the lack of pace in the team is the major problem that needs addressing because otherwise we have to get everything else absolutely perfect in order to win games consistently and as is painfully evident we don’t.

 

[Lanolin]

Ive no idea on Allan, but if you compare him to the form he showed in that Leeds home game or at the start of the season he doesn’t look the same player. Maybe we shouldn’t have bought him but Ancelotti clearly wanted him.

I don’t agree with you on Gomes, yes he was up and down before his injury but he wasn’t as bad as he is now as consistently. He can barely do anything now and has declined massively.

Being slow isn’t our only problem, but it is one of them, and it can override other problems as well. It doesn’t matter if we beat Burnley in a different season with similar players. I’m not saying they can never do it, absolutely if they all play really well and the opposition don’t fancy it then of course we can win games with a really slow midfield. It lessens the chance of doing that consistently though so the days when we aren’t playing at our best and Burnley are right up for it, we get beaten easily. Top teams can still win on those days because they can at least match Burnley’s pace. We struggle to match anyone’s pace.

You’re trying to push this into me holding a single cause issue which I don’t really. There’s lots of problems, and I’ve said elsewhere Ancelotti hasn’t got everything right with selection or tactics this season. In my mind though the lack of pace in the team is the major problem that needs addressing because otherwise we have to get everything else absolutely perfect in order to win games consistently and as is painfully evident we don’t.

No I agree that we desperately need pace, I think we all do. It just feels to me like every home game is a repeat of the last. We know what our problems are, but it feels like we don't do anything to negate them, we just turn up with the same game plan that has failed in all but one of our last eight home games. We need to find a way to get past the fact that other teams players might be a little bit faster than ours, I don't think that's asking too much. I've said before, I am absolutely not suggesting we should have beaten ALL of Burnley, Leeds, Newcastle, West Ham, Fulham etc, but I certainly think we should have found a way to beat SOME of them. Or at the very least come away wondering how we didn't. The concern for me is that we just don't seem to be able to find a way to have the game played on our terms, whoever or wherever we're playing. We need to find a way to change that, or the season is going to peter away into another disappointing failure.

 

[John from Bootle]

Yes. My expectation at the beginning was for us to be about 7th, and that's exactly where we are at the moment, so I would say we're having a decent season relatively speaking.

Two quarter finals also. Again, exactly where we should be (last 8/top 8.)

I feel people get caught up in individual results. I think it's fair to say that you need to be looking at about 20+ wins in a season to get top 4. I feel we're short of that. The wins might come in the games you expect them to, or they might not, but over the season, you'll find your level. That's why despite all the nonsense (covid aside) about this supposedly being the weirdest season ever, the league table is not that weird at all. The entire bottom half could have been -and will have been by some, I'm sure- easily predicted.

We're an inconsistent team, but then again, so was every other team who ever finished seventh.

 

[Lanolin]

Two quarter finals also. Again, exactly where we should be (last 8/top 8.)

I feel people get caught up in individual results. I think it's fair to say that you need to be looking at about 20+ wins in a season to get top 4. I feel we're short of that. The wins might come in the games you expect them to, or they might not, but over the season, you'll find your level. That's why despite all the nonsense (covid aside) about this supposedly being the weirdest season ever, the league table is not that weird at all. The entire bottom half could have been -and will have been by some, I'm sure- easily predicted.

We're an inconsistent team, but then again, so was every other team who ever finished seventh.

Yeah and i've never said that we're having a bad season or anything like that. I have said that while I thought 7th, it's clear the club want Europe and will be disappointed if they don't get it. I'm concerned that our recent performances suggest it's going to be very difficult to achieve that, and (personal opinion obviously) even 7th is looking like it might be a bridge too far if we keep on like this. I would say 8th would be disappointing but sort of acceptable, any lower than that and I think it's a genuine failure. Obviously they might prove me totally wrong, the form might pick up and we could find ourselves back in the top 4 hunt, but I struggle to see it.

Personally I don't really think we are inconsistent. Most of our games follow the same pattern, some of them we nick through a set piece or some individual brilliance, some we don't. I don't think there was too much difference between the level of performance in the Southampton and West Brom games and the Burnley game, it basically just came down to who scored first. Our results aren't even inconsistent to be honest, we get good ones away and bad ones at home.

 

[John from Bootle]

Yeah and i've never said that we're having a bad season or anything like that. I have said that while I thought 7th, it's clear the club want Europe and will be disappointed if they don't get it. I'm concerned that our recent performances suggest it's going to be very difficult to achieve that, and (personal opinion obviously) even 7th is looking like it might be a bridge too far if we keep on like this. I would say 8th would be disappointing but sort of acceptable, any lower than that and I think it's a genuine failure. Obviously they might prove me totally wrong, the form might pick up and we could find ourselves back in the top 4 hunt, but I struggle to see it.

Personally I don't really think we are inconsistent. Most of our games follow the same pattern, some of them we nick through a set piece or some individual brilliance, some we don't. I don't think there was too much difference between the level of performance in the Southampton and West Brom games and the Burnley game, it basically just came down to who scored first. Our results aren't even inconsistent to be honest, we get good ones away and bad ones at home.

I think you're massively over complicating things.

Even 19 wins, which would get you around the Europa places, means you're dropping points in half of your games, i.e inconsistent.

It's utter madness to suggest we're not an inconsistent team.

 

[Lanolin]

I think you're massively over complicating things.

Even 19 wins, which would get you around the Europa places, means you're dropping points in half of your games, i.e inconsistent.

It's utter madness to suggest we're not an inconsistent team.

Not sure that's me overcomplicating things to be honest. I'm saying our performances are pretty consistent, but sometimes we just do enough to win and sometimes we don't. To me inconsistent would be when one week you smash Southampton 4-0 playing sparkling football and the next week you lose 0-3 to Burnley looking like you've never met each other before. There have been plenty of Everton teams in the past i'd have called inconsistent, this isn't really one of them. Of course you could call any team that doesn't get the exact same result every week inconsistent, but I would say that was overcomplicating it personally.

 

[John from Bootle]

Not sure that's me overcomplicating things to be honest. I'm saying our performances are pretty consistent, but sometimes we just do enough to win and sometimes we don't. To me inconsistent would be when one week you smash Southampton 4-0 playing sparkling football and the next week you lose 0-3 to Burnley looking like you've never met each other before. There have been plenty of Everton teams in the past i'd have called inconsistent, this isn't really one of them. Of course you could call any team that doesn't get the exact same result every week inconsistent, but I would say that was overcomplicating it personally.

I see what you'e saying, but I'm talking specifically about results. You've just said it yourself, sometimes we do enough to win, and sometimes we don't. Inconsistent.

Unless you win more than half your games, then results have been clearly inconsistent, and only winning half your games is normally enough to be around the Europa places. Seeing as you expected us to finish 7th, how many wins were you expecting?

Talking about form is a bit weird too. We've lost 2 games. Before that, we won three on the bounce. Inconsistent.

 

[MikeH72]

Not sure that's me overcomplicating things to be honest. I'm saying our performances are pretty consistent, but sometimes we just do enough to win and sometimes we don't. To me inconsistent would be when one week you smash Southampton 4-0 playing sparkling football and the next week you lose 0-3 to Burnley looking like you've never met each other before. There have been plenty of Everton teams in the past i'd have called inconsistent, this isn't really one of them. Of course you could call any team that doesn't get the exact same result every week inconsistent, but I would say that was overcomplicating it personally.

Our performances have been consistently grim for ages now. Southampton missed two sitters in the last couple of minutes and West Brom had a goal disallowed for a toenail offside in the two games we’ve won. We have rode our luck in a few games this season.

 

[Lanolin]

I see what you'e saying, but I'm talking specifically about results. You've just said it yourself, sometimes we do enough to win, and sometimes we don't. Inconsistent.

Unless you win more than half your games, then results have been clearly inconsistent, and only winning half your games is normally enough to be around the Europa places. Seeing as you expected us to finish 7th, how many wins were you expecting?

Talking about form is a bit weird too. We've lost 2 games. Before that, we won three on the bounce. Inconsistent.

I think we're just talking about semantics here. I'm saying our performances are pretty consistent, and whether West Brom have a goal disallowed for being a millimetre offside or not doesn't make us a more or less consistent team. You're using a different metric, which is absolutely fine. You're not wrong, we're just not really looking at the same things. Thats why it's not weird to talk about our form. I'm saying if we continue playing the way we have in recent months I just can't see us winning enough games to finish top 6. As I said, I might be wrong, i'm not claiming to be the oracle, I just don't see us getting away with it for that long. At some point being outplayed and outshot in every game comes home to roost I think. You're perfectly entitled to disagree.

 

[JMT]

The fact is we've been outplayed by WBA/Southampton and Burnley in a row, You can throw the performance to the back of your mind if you get the 3 points but when you don't it starts to become a slight problem because this isn't something that's just happened overnight we've been playing absolute mind numbing Football since the first derby back in October.

 

[Death]

It was fascinating how quickly some got over winning the derby. At Anfield. Like the very next game. That we won.


I use to always think the next manager to break that horrible record would get some serious leeway off the fans. We are having a decent season regardless of that derby win. But we won the two games after and people were on his back.

 

[brieverton]

Ancelotti has been honest in interviews about where he thinks we're at and that's European but not Champions League qualification, be it the Europa League or the Conference.

Clearly that's the benchmark for this season and I imagine he has told Moshiri and the board that Top 6/7 are the limits of what is achievable, with this squad, for this season.

We've been unlucky with injuries but I'll be massively disappointed if we don't reach that goal this year.

People say the media don't talk us up but I think there has been a fair amount of hype generated this year. I'm dubious now as to if we will make it, and when all is said and done, for me, it would amount to another season of nothingness and disappointment, not having Europe next year.

I doubt we will ever have the perfect squad or team, there are always seemingly too many gaps to fill each season relative to our budget. We can get closer to that goal with smart recruitment year on year but after 2 seasons of European football in 10 and going on 27 years without a trophy, it's not like a child saying "Are we there yet?" Sooner or later, the time has to be now for this club, and we are not talking league titles here, hardly.

We have to build momentum year on year in tandem with the move to the stadium. It's not a criticism of Ancelotti but in essence I think his task this season is to qualify us for Europe, warts and all in the squad. It's a big blow if we don't make it. Leicester have overtaken us like Spurs did before, and we can't afford to finish below West Ham, Europe or not.

There is much to play for yet, but the sort of dross on display last Saturday and in other home games is unacceptable to me. Even a point in each of those games and we would be much better off. Ultimately, that is on Ancelotti to find a way around, and to sort out.

 

[BlueToff]

Yeah and i've never said that we're having a bad season or anything like that. I have said that while I thought 7th, it's clear the club want Europe and will be disappointed if they don't get it. I'm concerned that our recent performances suggest it's going to be very difficult to achieve that, and (personal opinion obviously) even 7th is looking like it might be a bridge too far if we keep on like this. I would say 8th would be disappointing but sort of acceptable, any lower than that and I think it's a genuine failure. Obviously they might prove me totally wrong, the form might pick up and we could find ourselves back in the top 4 hunt, but I struggle to see it.

Personally I don't really think we are inconsistent. Most of our games follow the same pattern, some of them we nick through a set piece or some individual brilliance, some we don't. I don't think there was too much difference between the level of performance in the Southampton and West Brom games and the Burnley game, it basically just came down to who scored first. Our results aren't even inconsistent to be honest, we get good ones away and bad ones at home.

Spot on.

We're a moments team. We play moments football. We base everything on having those moments and taking them.

Issue is, that puts so much burden on our 3 players actually capable of being creative (one of whom will only be fit for half of our games, the other one the fanbase don't rate and the other one is a left-back), and it also puts a massive burden on Dom - and Rich - to take them.

I don't mind us being a moments team, but if we're going to do that, we need to up our chance creation and find different ways to score goals (which weirdly, we did do v Burnley in terms of the players involved in the move up until the goal). Otherwise, we're putting far too much pressure on our defence.

 

[BlueToff]

No I agree that we desperately need pace, I think we all do. It just feels to me like every home game is a repeat of the last. We know what our problems are, but it feels like we don't do anything to negate them, we just turn up with the same game plan that has failed in all but one of our last eight home games. We need to find a way to get past the fact that other teams players might be a little bit faster than ours, I don't think that's asking too much. I've said before, I am absolutely not suggesting we should have beaten ALL of Burnley, Leeds, Newcastle, West Ham, Fulham etc, but I certainly think we should have found a way to beat SOME of them. Or at the very least come away wondering how we didn't. The concern for me is that we just don't seem to be able to find a way to have the game played on our terms, whoever or wherever we're playing. We need to find a way to change that, or the season is going to peter away into another disappointing failure.

Leeds game doesn't worry me as much as the others, mainly because we tried to go toe-to-toe with them and got outdone by them. At the time I was concerned by how unfit we looked, but since then we do seem to have been able to last longer in matches.

The West Ham game - think that's one of them where it goes either way based on a bit of luck/quality (which, let's face it, is how we've got points in a fair few away games this season).

But the other three, they're the real worry.

In no way or season is it acceptable for us to lose home games to those teams. Even if we just avoid defeat in those matches - the minimum that should be expected - we're one point off 4th at the minute.

100% agree with the rest mate and it's a worry. I do have faith they'll turn it around, and part of that will be better players. That being said, we shouldn't be just saying 'we need better players' to be beating teams in the bottom five.

18 points on offer from home and away games v Fulham, Newcastle and Burnley. We've taken 4.

 

[chrismpw]

Ancelotti is rebuilding Rome here fellas. It will take a while. Those standing on their self made pedestals proclaiming that he's made mistakes need to realise that every manager does so. Carlo makes fewer than most and ceraltainly fewer than amateur opinionistas on here would.

Just perhaps when we lose a game or perform poorly its NOT just down to his mistakes - its down to the fact that maybe the other team did well. That's what happens in sport. We're not the rs who flap around to find excuses to not being perfect all of the time, so stop yer whinging. If you want to moan about a manager not delivering you your divine right every game, go support the mutants.