2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[BornBlue76]

Great year to be Carlo.. all the credit for beating Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea ... none of the responsibility for losing to Saints, Newcastle, Fulham and Burnley..

 

[MrGrumpy]

We played with pace through midfield v Spurs? We moved the ball quickly, we pressed high?

Davies and Allan gave a foundation and that pushed Gylfi and James on, so they were doing their work in the final third rather than the middle third.

Against Arsenal he brought Gomes in for Davies (and then Delph on???) so suddenly our midfield went back to not having that foundation and instead being pretty cramped.

I know we need better players. But it's not the only factor.

Isn't it mad that we're saying our midfield is the weakest in the league yet in the last two summer windows we've spent around £80m on it?

For their many faults, these players can be capable of attacking patterns of play and building moves. We just don't see it enough. I'm happy to say the players aren't good enough, I just also think that more could be being done in that regard too.

Atm, if James has an off day, or isn't fit, we don't really have any creativity. I don't think that's good enough from anyone involved tbh.

I saw good things v Spurs and suppose it would have been nice to see that carry on, in some regard, against Arsenal. We need to start getting Digne into dangerous positions at the byline/in the box, like we do with Coleman occassionally. We need to start playing the ball quicker through midfield. I appreciate they aren't 'quick' players but you don't need to be rapid to not take 3/4 touches when one or two will do.

But, we got the points so if we can see some nice attacking stuff v Villa but get the result to boot, then hopefully it's the start of seeing some better stuff in the run-in and something to really build on for next year.

You can’t play fast flowing attacking football if your players can’t motor up the field, yes we played decent stuff against Spurs are where the better team. Spurs got incredibly lucky not once but twice. We failed to take so many chances in that game.
Palace was the same, DCL is useless 1v1.
James is by far our most creative player but Allan passing is very under rated.
Sigi has moments but his severe lack of pass affects our ability to move up the field, he can’t run on to a ball because he gets beats for pace

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

@BlueToff .

To summarise. You like Carlo. You value tactical and stylistic flexibility over leaden 'philosophers'. But you'd like to see us play at better tempo with quicker transitions.

Part of the problem is playing staff, part of it may be Ancelotti's preferences, some may be injury. It's not monocausal.

But overall you are content, wishing to see a few tweaks and improvements, particularly in attacking intent and consistency. Right?

Just trying to get to the nub of your many posts.

 

[Death]

u disgusting leeches sucking all joy out of grandoldteam.com for others because u hate what a failing human u are and then u fail to get arousal and hate urself even more. we will hound u. we will CRUSH u like the cockroaches u are.

You can get angry over everton not scoring 5 goals against arsenal but why not direct that towards not achieving 5 orgasms for Mrs Dri over the span of a marriage.

 

[MrGrumpy]

It's not about a formation.

Teams play different formations all the time but still stick to the same principles.

I like Carlo's flexibility. I just don't think 2-3 new players are going to turn us into a free-flowing, possession based team or a high pressing team or something along those lines.

You can implement that model without having the exact players. I just don't think he wants to.

Again, I don't think that's a bad thing. I just think people saying it's just a case of needing new players are simplifying it a bit too much.

You also missing 1 key ingredient and that Mentality, most of all of these players have never won at Arsenal and have bad memories of Arsenal, then you got to add in the * Everton havnt won at Arsenal since 96* which must carry heavy on players. Coleman’s been at the club 10+ years and never won at Arsenal.
Don’t underestimate what Carlo achieved this year, wins at the RS, Spurs and Arsenal are huge. Yes without fans but next season the players will know what it’s like to win there because they have they did it last season

 

[Gilbert..]

Great year to be Carlo.. all the credit for beating Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea ... none of the responsibility for losing to Saints, Newcastle, Fulham and Burnley..

I must be reading another forum.

 

[catcherintherye]

I don't disagree mate. But to me having basic patterns of attacking play that aren't reliant on one or two players doesn't add up to a philsophy. It comes from work on the training pitch, drills, players knowing where to be and where to run and when to time it etc.

Now, I fully appreciate that better players help with that. And we need better players. But, when I watch us a lot of time it seems that we just lack any of those basic concepts bar a few odd exceptions. Not completely missing, but we don't do them enough. I just feel we can have better in that aspect and arguably should have better 16 months in.

But back to your general point I do agree. I'm not asking for some philosophy of passing it out from the back at any cost or being dead set on counter-pressing or anything like that.

Yes all very fair points.

What I would say is that most of Ancelotti's early work has really been at the back, and focussed on building from the back. We generally don't concede more than 2 in any game and a lot of games are either 1 or 0. That has made us competitive in games, and for the msot part we have held onto Leeds pretty well. There's only that United home game where we have gone head and lost, and we have taken the lead a fair bit this season.

I suppose I have some realism in how much I expect in a certain time frame. We are much better organised. Going forward, we are very reliant upon our attacking players. We look a much better team when James is fit. He makes a mssive difference, and really the almost entire focus, even if we bring people in, has to be to keep him fit as much as possible.

 

[BlueToff]

@BlueToff .

To summarise. You like Carlo. You value tactical and stylistic flexibility over leaden 'philosophers'. But you'd like to see us play at better tempo with quicker transitions.

Part of the problem is playing staff, part of it may be Ancelotti's preferences, some may be injury. It's not monocausal.

But overall you are content, wishing to see a few tweaks and improvements, particularly in attacking intent and consistency. Right?

Just trying to get to the nub of your many posts.

Yes, well summed up.

I think after 16 months we could perhaps expect to see a little more quality in how we play (as Carlo puts it). I accept that there's loads of caveats - no fans, injuries, previous poor recruitment, COVID congesting 1 and 1/2 seasons etc.

I don't want him out. I don't think we have some divine right to be doing better. I think he's made mistakes which have cost us in certain moments but conversely he's won us games too (I don't think one of those was Friday just gone, mind).

I would really like to see us string a few performances together that give us a platform to build from for next season. Some form of consistency that isn't just backs to the wall defending. That's about where I am with it. And an idea that can be used next season, but with - hopefully - better players in terms of athleticism, pace and skill etc.

Given it's so blatantly obvious what we need, too, then we really have to move decisively this summer. A lot is going to depend on whether we get Europe, but regardless, we know the positions we need to buy for. That bit obviously isn't on Carlo.

 

[Lanolin]

You also missing 1 key ingredient and that Mentality, most of all of these players have never won at Arsenal and have bad memories of Arsenal, then you got to add in the * Everton havnt won at Arsenal since 96* which must carry heavy on players. Coleman’s been at the club 10+ years and never won at Arsenal.
Don’t underestimate what Carlo achieved this year, wins at the RS, Spurs and Arsenal are huge. Yes without fans but next season the players will know what it’s like to win there because they have they did it last season

Honestly I doubt they even know about it. Anfield was a bit different because the fans were absolutely desperate and it was actually 'news' in a way, but I very much doubt that someone like Allan is coming over here and sitting at home telling the mrs that he's got a really difficult game coming up because historically Everton have a very poor record away at Arsenal. Half the time they probably don't even know who we're playing a week in advance, nevermind how long it is since we last won there.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Honestly I doubt they even know about it. Anfield was a bit different because the fans were absolutely desperate and it was actually 'news' in a way, but I very much doubt that someone like Allan is coming over here and sitting at home telling the mrs that he's got a really difficult game coming up because historically Everton have a very poor record away at Arsenal. Half the time they probably don't even know who we're playing a week in advance, nevermind how long it is since we last won there.

Allan may Not But I am sure most of the team did

 

[Lanolin]

Allan may Not But I am sure most of the team did

Why would Allan be different to any of the others? I just plucked him out as an example of a foreign player with no longstanding ties to the club, the same would apply to 90% of them. Coleman - the example you used - is pretty much the only one who would potentially have had that mindset of thinking 'we never win here'. Hardly any of the others have been here more than 3 years, and loads of them will have won at those grounds with other clubs. I genuinely don't even think it would enter their heads.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Why would Allan be different to any of the others? I just plucked him out as an example of a foreign player with no longstanding ties to the club, the same would apply to 90% of them. Coleman - the example you used - is pretty much the only one who would potentially have had that mindset of thinking 'we never win here'. Hardly any of the others have been here more than 3 years, and loads of them will have won at those grounds with other clubs. I genuinely don't even think it would enter their heads.

Allan signed for Everton in the summer, same with James, the rest have probably never won there. Ferguson, DCL, Davies to name a few will know.

if it doesn’t enter players heads why has every other Everton team for the last 26 years failed to win there? No matter how well or how bad we played

 

[Lanolin]

Allan signed for Everton in the summer, same with James, the rest have probably never won there. Ferguson, DCL, Davies to name a few will know.

if it doesn’t enter players heads why has every other Everton team for the last 26 years failed to win there? No matter how well or how bad we played

Mainly because they've been better than us in each and every one of those seasons.

I mean it's possible that the first time we've won at Arsenal in so long is down to a mentality change in the players, yes. It's also possible that the fact there were no fans in the stadium for the first time in that period, and them having Eddie Nketiah, Callum Chambers, Xhaka at left back and Pablo Mari instead of some combination of Henry, Bergkamp, Ozil, Aubameyang, Fabregas, Pires, Cole, Clichy, Campbell, Adams, Overmars etc helped. It's really difficult to know which one makes more sense isn't it?

 

[catcherintherye]

Why would Allan be different to any of the others? I just plucked him out as an example of a foreign player with no longstanding ties to the club, the same would apply to 90% of them. Coleman - the example you used - is pretty much the only one who would potentially have had that mindset of thinking 'we never win here'. Hardly any of the others have been here more than 3 years, and loads of them will have won at those grounds with other clubs. I genuinely don't even think it would enter their heads.

I've always felt the poor record across all 6 grounds, was more telling than say the long records if that makes sense? I do think when teams just get used to losing certain types of games it becomes habitual, and it did. But yes, the idea of this huge 20 year mental block has never quite sat right with me, as it was before a lot of them were even kicking a football when we were losing games at certain places.

I'd say the biggest win for us was probably Tottenham. It's the sort of game where players will go back in and think "we can beat anybody now". It's funny but the reverse is probably true at Goodison where they must start to think "here we go again". I saw something in the Athletic which said Liverpool were terrified of playing at Anfield now which kind of fits in, and you can see them snatching at chances.

Allan and James are probably good examples, but are both a bit different to the rest of the squad. In all honesty while a lot of games are important to us, to them this will seem like a bit of a holiday. James has played local derbies, for the side expected to win in European cup finals. He genuinely probably had no idea who we were before this season, and I doubt he even knows who Kevin Campbell is.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Mainly because they've been better than us in each and every one of those seasons.

I mean it's possible that the first time we've won at Arsenal in so long is down to a mentality change in the players, yes. It's also possible that the fact there were no fans in the stadium for the first time in that period, and them having Eddie Nketiah, Callum Chambers, Xhaka at left back and Pablo Mari instead of some combination of Henry, Bergkamp, Ozil, Aubameyang, Fabregas, Pires, Cole, Clichy, Campbell, Adams, Overmars etc helped. It's really difficult to know which one makes more sense isn't it?

It’s hard to tell as what happened on Friday could of happened in any of the pervious 26 but didn’t. There been times be been beat 7-0 and 4-1 there, we been there played really well then laco hits a stunner and within a few minutes we lost 2-0.
when was the last time we got luck like that? Not just at a top 6 ground but anywhere