catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
I tend to take a long view on these things and in truth most things. Shortterm ups and downs don't worry me as much if I can see a longer term picture.
He took over a team who were 18th under the last previous manager (albeit underachieving in 18th but 18th none the less). He dragged us to 49 points, averaging about 60 points per season over thagt 1st half season. To be honest this was very good. Whichever way you want to look at it, it was very good. There's an argument this season we haven't kicked on at all from that point, and will likely finish around 60 points. Thats fair enough and probably more a criticism to be looked at going into next year. What can't be doubted though, is we have made huge strides forward in the 50 games he has been here.
I do think we have been very unlucky this year. We have had a worse injury crisis than Liverpool, who will likely lose 30 points on last season as a result, yet we will be maintaining performance. There were 12 players injured yesterday, and we ended a game with Sigurdsson and James in midfield, neither of them able to run. James was done on 70. I've never known a season like it for injuries for us, or frankly for any other club. It's been insane.
My big criticism for Ancelotti this season was that he moved away from the solid back 4 of 4 CB's. There were games when they were available, like Newcastle at home, Burnley at home and Fulham at home where had we have kept them, I don't think we would have conceded and, may have scored one up the other end. Even if we had just kept 3 clean sheets, we would have 5 more points, and would be favourites for the top 4. It's small margins, but that to me was his biggest mistake. He has kept trying to re-invent the wheel, and thats not always easy to do. It doesn't surprise me that our loss of form coincides with those 4 players not being played together.
Even yesterday, while we didn't play them as a 4, having 4 of them on the pitch led to another clean sheet. Anyway we are going in the right direction. A top 8 finish, with 20+ players injured this season and an awful home record which will have to improve next year wth fans (look at our performance when some fans were in) gives us a good base to build on. Hopefully players stay fit, and the lads return from loan as better players.
He took over a team who were 18th under the last previous manager (albeit underachieving in 18th but 18th none the less). He dragged us to 49 points, averaging about 60 points per season over thagt 1st half season. To be honest this was very good. Whichever way you want to look at it, it was very good. There's an argument this season we haven't kicked on at all from that point, and will likely finish around 60 points. Thats fair enough and probably more a criticism to be looked at going into next year. What can't be doubted though, is we have made huge strides forward in the 50 games he has been here.
I do think we have been very unlucky this year. We have had a worse injury crisis than Liverpool, who will likely lose 30 points on last season as a result, yet we will be maintaining performance. There were 12 players injured yesterday, and we ended a game with Sigurdsson and James in midfield, neither of them able to run. James was done on 70. I've never known a season like it for injuries for us, or frankly for any other club. It's been insane.
My big criticism for Ancelotti this season was that he moved away from the solid back 4 of 4 CB's. There were games when they were available, like Newcastle at home, Burnley at home and Fulham at home where had we have kept them, I don't think we would have conceded and, may have scored one up the other end. Even if we had just kept 3 clean sheets, we would have 5 more points, and would be favourites for the top 4. It's small margins, but that to me was his biggest mistake. He has kept trying to re-invent the wheel, and thats not always easy to do. It doesn't surprise me that our loss of form coincides with those 4 players not being played together.
Even yesterday, while we didn't play them as a 4, having 4 of them on the pitch led to another clean sheet. Anyway we are going in the right direction. A top 8 finish, with 20+ players injured this season and an awful home record which will have to improve next year wth fans (look at our performance when some fans were in) gives us a good base to build on. Hopefully players stay fit, and the lads return from loan as better players.
