2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[Bob Elstone]

This place is gonna go off when Moyes out does Carlo!

 

[BornBlue76]

Be nice if for once we didnt have to give excuses for our managers:

El Loco - Needs players who can play fancy football

Koeman - cleaning up El Loco's mess

Silva - tRaNsItIoN sEAsOn

Carlo - needs his own players

Only one who has actually over achieved was the bloke who was vilified the most - Fat Sam with that squad he was left with by Koeman/Walsh.

the hypocrisy is not lost on me.. about big Sam, the hatred he got (of which I was a happy contributor) for the way our team played while we ignored the results he achieved.

In the part of the season when I still cared, I called out quite early Carlo is Sam in a designer suit but seems to be judged by very different standards.
The tipping point game where I wrote off the season was oddly the win against WBA. . I promised I wouldn’t judge any performance again, just the results and only at the end of the season.

what I will say is if I had spent the amount of money Mosh has just be told we still need to replace more than half the side to play football resembling anything with ambition , someone would have been fired. And I’m looking at you Brands.

 

[John from Bootle]

Totally agree every single chance to crash into the top six we blow it. Conversely if we aren't expected to win we can..

Carlo as good as called them out for it in his presser the other day.

That was my interpretation of it anyway. He said he sees things in training - probably things he's wanting them to do - that then don't happen in matches.

This is why peoples criticisms are misguided imo. He's Carlo f'in Ancelotti, fgs. As if he's not watching and thinking exactly what we're thinking - that some of these players are a bit rubbish.

Peoples egos are massively out of control when they think they are seeing things that Carlo isn't. Carlo has higher standards than 99% of the biffs on here - make no mistake about that.

No manager in world football is gonna make these players into genuine top 4 contenders. A squad overhaul is needed. I'd be very surprised if more than 6 of these players are here in 5 years in time, regardless of who the manager is.

The thing is, we've witnessed exactly how beneficial a period of stability is. We watched Moyes build a good team on a budget, that took many years to assemble. Look at the 2009 squad compared to the team he had when he took over...

Most of these players won't be here in a few years. Hopefully Carlo is.

 

[Carloblues]

This place is gonna go off when Moyes out does Carlo!

He already has this season

 

[John from Bootle]

I think we’ve played “well” in about 4 games all season mate. We’ve defended well in a lot of games, but we haven’t played well.

Bit of an exaggeration like. It's been more than 4 games.

I get people want to see us play better. But do you not think the manager wants that too?

Bigger picture is we've improved. That's all I'm interested in.

Season by season improvement is all you can ask of any manager imo. He's got my absolute backing until it reaches a point where we look to be regressing.

Coming on to whinge about the small details is pointless, imo. Bigger picture is, we've improved, in his first full season.

Well done Carlo, now go and improve us again thanks.

 

[Quadvod]

the hypocrisy is not lost on me.. about big Sam, the hatred he got (of which I was a happy contributor) for the way our team played while we ignored the results he achieved.

In the part of the season when I still cared, I called out quite early Carlo is Sam in a designer suit but seems to be judged by very different standards.
The tipping point game where I wrote off the season was oddly the win against WBA. . I promised I wouldn’t judge any performance again, just the results and only at the end of the season.

what I will say is if I had spent the amount of money Mosh has just be told we still need to replace more than half the side to play football resembling anything with ambition , someone would have been fired. And I’m looking at you Brands.

I’m the same - bar the first few weeks of the season (in fact those few weeks probably make it worse) our play on the ball has been as bad as I can remember it - the only saving grace of the season is that we seem to have hit on a successful tactic against the better sides of ceding control, keeping compact and being proficient at set pieces/capitalising on mistakes.

I often wonder what Moshiri thinks - £400m+ spent and for what, totally unbalanced squad, dire football and continual finishes in mid table. He’s tried the famous ex player, the young up coming coach and has now gone for the most decorated manager he could lay his hands on all to no avail. You’d think with that sort of money spent we’d be Leicester and building nicely towards entering our new ground, instead as you say he needs to finance the near total rebuild of the squad.

 

[kenada_blue]

I’m the same - bar the first few weeks of the season (in fact those few weeks probably make it worse) our play on the ball has been as bad as I can remember it - the only saving grace of the season is that we seem to have hit on a successful tactic against the better sides of ceding control, keeping compact and being proficient at set pieces/capitalising on mistakes.

I often wonder what Moshiri thinks - £400m+ spent and for what, totally unbalanced squad, dire football and continual finishes in mid table. He’s tried the famous ex player, the young up coming coach and has now gone for the most decorated manager he could lay his hands on all to no avail. You’d think with that sort of money spent we’d be Leicester and building nicely towards entering our new ground, instead as you say he needs to finance the near total rebuild of the squad.

The £300mill Koeman and Walsh spent poisoned us for years.

I think we're just at the end of it now.

 

[kenada_blue]

I'm very Carlo in but I do think the criticism is very reasonable from fans. 90% of it is not saying they want him sacked. I know somepeople would want what I would call a "project manager" in more, I wouldnt really but I understand the point completely.

We have wasted a lot of opportunitie at home, and in most of those games got exactly what we deserved as well. Its not like ujnder Martinez and that Stoke game, where we would play well and defensive lapses would cost us, or the West Ham game where we would miss a penalty to get 3-0 ahead, and you could see we do 90% of the things well but the manager just seemed to have an ideological aversion to doing the final 10%. While I believe in general you make your own luck, I can also see that in as far as luck exists we have been lucky in games this season at home.

To be fair to Ancelotti I actually think he would expect criticism and be ok with it. I'd like to think he will be quite critical of himself. If we don't make Europe, it is a failure of a season, and in honesty we would only have ourselves to blame. I think he would be quite critical and honest about himself and hopefully about some of the players he has been quite loyal to.

You never get as much wholesale change as you want, but we might need more than we though. Certain players have just let us down too often. Iwobi, Keane, Holgate are 3 who have played a lot of minutes but I'm not sure will ever be top 6 players.

I'm a bit like you though, not even that angry just a bit bemused by it. This squad have ended the winning away at the big 6 hoodoo and the Anfield one. I was at Highbury the last time we won there too, as a young lad and it really does seem a lifetime ago. Part of me is really grateful we've ticked those boxes off. But the logical part of me just thinks there is a real problem with those players when you can't follow up those big wins win decent displays, never mind results. You think of the Liverpool game followed by the Burnley performance, and the Arsenal win followed by the Villa one. I just can't fathom it. Its probably not true but it just feels like they turn up when they fancy it. If thats the case, in a lot of ways that is far worse than just being a poor team.

Nail on the head there.

Don't forget these games away at Spurs, Arsenal, and the RS had James and Allan playing. Two champions League, elite level footballers who don't go hiding in big games, have the quality.

Then theres the rest of the team.

It's chalk and cheese.

 

[Groucho]

Moshiri has sacked a Director of Football and manager after manager but there's people saying there's no pressure/accountability put on them?

Odd.

Some people just like to criticise, I’m sure of it.

Also, the same people seem to think that not calling for the managers head after every defeat means that you are accepting mediocrity.

They lack any foresight.

 

[JMT]

didn't he mention this group of players can't play open football after Fulham destroyed us or something along them lines. Personally I think he's tailoring the system to the players he's got rather than the players to his system because we're so close to Europe on fine margins.

I've never seen a midfield so scared to move and run forward with the ball it's actually quite bizarre, They actually crap themselves and struggle to do it and sadly Ancelotti's midfield options when Doucoure are out are absolutely dreadful.

 

[Lanolin]

These are the worst of all.
The "but" brigade .

Yeah, those balanced people are a nightmare.

 

[Saint Domingo]

Nail on the head there.

Don't forget these games away at Spurs, Arsenal, and the RS had James and Allan playing. Two champions League, elite level footballers who don't go hiding in big games, have the quality.

Then theres the rest of the team.

It's chalk and cheese.

What I would call the quality disparity in our squad is absolutely massive and potentially the largest in the league. At one end of the scale there’s James who the best teams in the world were happy to build their sides around he was so good at one point. His immediate replacement is a player who wouldn’t get into any other premier league team. Same with Allan, same with Docuoure, same with Richalrison, same with Digne.

Other teams have players who aren’t as good as their first team sure but are still very good prem players. Chelsea City United have two in every position, Leicester pretty much do now as well. No surprise they’ll probably be the top 4. Even Arsenal can swap their front three of Aubemayang Lacazette Pepe for Saka Martinelli Willian. We’re nowhere near that level of depth.

That means you need your best players to go injury free to have a chance of competing. Instead we’ve had Allan with two separate hamstring injuries, Digne did his ankle ligaments, Docuoure has broken his foot, James has been in and out all season with a problematic calf. Gbamin also hasn’t been able to add another option at any point. Delph whilst not very good has also missed the majority of the season. We just don’t have enough without them. It’s the same players that last season Carlo said were not good enough. Why do people think they’ve suddenly changed.

 

[bluerobert]

What I would call the quality disparity in our squad is absolutely massive and potentially the largest in the league. At one end of the scale there’s James who the best teams in the world were happy to build their sides around he was so good at one point. His immediate replacement is a player who wouldn’t get into any other premier league team. Same with Allan, same with Docuoure, same with Richalrison, same with Digne.

Other teams have players who aren’t as good as their first team sure but are still very good prem players. Chelsea City United have two in every position, Leicester pretty much do now as well. No surprise they’ll probably be the top 4. Even Arsenal can swap their front three of Aubemayang Lacazette Pepe for Saka Martinelli Willian. We’re nowhere near that level of depth.

That means you need your best players to go injury free to have a chance of competing. Instead we’ve had Allan with two separate hamstring injuries, Digne did his ankle ligaments, Docuoure has broken his foot, James has been in and out all season with a problematic calf. Gbamin also hasn’t been able to add another option at any point. Delph whilst not very good has also missed the majority of the season. We just don’t have enough without them. It’s the same players that last season Carlo said were not good enough. Why do people think they’ve suddenly changed.

I don’t think I’d disagree with anything you said there

 

[Eggs]

....another factor at play here is stability.

i imagine the last thing Moshiri wants with a new stadium on the horizon is upheaval and flirting with the bottom of the table. It could be part of the reasoning behind the Brands contract situation.

I’m ambivalent to Brands and to a certain extent Ancelotti‘s future with us, but I agree that we are progressing in the right direction so I’m content if that continues to be the case in the BMD development years.

 

[TheSecondComing]

The £300mill Koeman and Walsh spent poisoned us for years.

I think we're just at the end of it now.

They should be banned words now