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2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

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Saint Domingo said:
People won’t agree, but I think he’s putting in place the building blocks to change how we play football for the better.

Under Koeman Silva and Allardyce the football was largely the same. Hitting long balls down the middle or diagonal for DCL or Lukaku to battle for, try and win it back high up the pitch and overload the full backs. It worked to a point especially against lower teams at home but top teams dealt with it so easily and cut us to shreds either on the counter or if they could keep the ball well and we didn’t have the discipline to sit in.

Now we keep trying to play out from the back. It’s not working very often (as in my opinion the players aren’t good enough technically to do it) but we’ve kept trying it all the time. There’s been occasions this season where it had come off and we’ve moved the ball through the phases back to front very well. When Allan and James play the difference in how we do this is marked. If more of the key players involved in the build up (e.g a competent right back, a decent centreback who isn’t Keane, and another competent midfielder) can handle the ball better next season the occurrences of these moves starting to be successful will increase and so will the quality of the football. He’s putting in place tactics that can work with better players, he’s not resorting to kick and rush long ball football which other managers went to.
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I'm pretty sure that if you adjust long balls for ball possession then Everton will be pretty high up on that table. That said, I have nothing against long balls, I have asked the question for several years why no team uses long balls behind the defensive line to high pressure teams, with coordinated runs behind the defensive line. Has more problems with teams that at all costs must play out from behind, and which constantly run straight into the press trap.
 
Egil Olsen said:
I'm pretty sure that if you adjust long balls for ball possession then Everton will be pretty high up on that table. That said, I have nothing against long balls, I have asked the question for several years why no team uses long balls behind the defensive line to high pressure teams, with coordinated runs behind the defensive line. Has more problems with teams that at all costs must play out from behind, and which constantly run straight into the press trap.
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Ive got no problem with them either when they’re used effectively. What I didn’t tolls to see was our previous style of ply which would be the keeper rolling it out to a centreback who would then line up a long punt into a corner and have all nine other players running after it. That goes nowhere against top sides as we’ve seen.

Sure our football has broken down loads of times this season but a lot of the errors have been made from us trying to at least play out. Yes we end up going back to the keeper way too much but with better players this happens less and less and before you know it you have a team who can keep the ball along the back line and find the likes of James in space to spring attacking players, we’ve seen more through balls this season than an at any point since Martinez and Deulofeu were here.

Carlo takes criticism for not working on a style of play or implementing a philosophy. I think he has taken a harder choice to try and train some principles of possession based football into players but ultimately they’re not good enough. I still remember Keane and Siggurdson somehow both falling over a stationary ball agaisnt Palace that they were both favourites to win and we ended up defending a counterattack because the simple truth is that apart from a few players, most of the squad cannot handle playing a possession game.

Coleman’s technique is utterly abysmal and he struggles to find a pass and finds crossing a ball impossible. Siggurdson is lucky if he ever sees a second touch after his abysmal first one. Ditto Gomes, who wouldn’t be able to not overhit a 5 yard ball even if he did get a pass off. Davies the same. They all know this so they panic and go back to the defenders where we have Baresi himself Michael Keane ready to take an uncertain touch and lunge after it.

At the moment it’s a chain with several broken links but if we replace even one of them let’s say the right back for example, suddenly he’s played a decent ball infield and the midfielder had received it with a bit more time. That means they can then play slightly better ball to the next person. Rather than this cos tang hot potato we have now, the patterns Ancelotti coaches them to ply are suddenly looking a lot easier. It results in attackers getting the ball with more time to fishing better.
 
Saint Domingo said:
Yes but the strength of the squad Carrie them through. Ndidi is injured and Praet can come in. Pereira injured and James Justin comes in. They’re never left with a Davies or Siggurdson playing. They’ve kept their key attackers Tielemans and Vardy fit most of the season. We’ve not kept our big gun James fit.
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This is a major downgrade. Also Justin picked up a cruciate ligament injury in January and Vardy is genuinely finished. They’ve had a worse season than us injury wise, they’ve had Maddison, Barnes, Soyuncu, Castagne and Evans all out for long periods who are key players.
 
Egil Olsen said:
I'm pretty sure that if you adjust long balls for ball possession then Everton will be pretty high up on that table. That said, I have nothing against long balls, I have asked the question for several years why no team uses long balls behind the defensive line to high pressure teams, with coordinated runs behind the defensive line. Has more problems with teams that at all costs must play out from behind, and which constantly run straight into the press trap.
Click to expand...
I think Long ball is a bit of ambigious term now. I see a long ball as a Sam Allardyce/Kevin Davies tactic, a lot of teams, well, good teams do use a little dinked ball out of the back to beat that press. Something we should hopefully see more off when we do. I always think our main issues come against teams who dont press, who say 'break us down'. We do have moments of playing out where all of us are going, WHAT ARE YOU DOING, but as another poster pointed out, that's down to individuals mostly.

I do think its a mixture of players not being good enough but CA pushing on for the foundation blocks being put in place, he admitted recently he expects better football next season. The other side of that mix is you can say well, is it right to do that?

I dont think the board/Brands had any expectation to be brilliant this year, you cant keep asking the same players to step up when they've shown they do not have the ability.

For ME, all issues lead to midfield being no up to scratch. I HAVENT checked the stats on this, so maybe I'm blindly wrong, but I would have imagined our resutls/performances have been better when we've had our first choice 3 in midfield, which we haven't had for many, many games.
 

MikeH72 said:
This is a major downgrade. Also Justin picked up a cruciate ligament injury in January and Vardy is genuinely finished. They’ve had a worse season than us injury wise, they’ve had Maddison, Barnes, Soyuncu, Castagne and Evans all out for long periods who are key players.
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Their squad is far better than Evertons and they have recruited players who slot in and still adapt to their work ethic and style. Even albrighton, who most Everton fans would turn their nose up at, slots in and does a turn.
Evertons midfield is a tug boat in comparison. 80% of our midfield would be lucky to get on their bench.
 
MikeH72 said:
This is a major downgrade. Also Justin picked up a cruciate ligament injury in January and Vardy is genuinely finished. They’ve had a worse season than us injury wise, they’ve had Maddison, Barnes, Soyuncu, Castagne and Evans all out for long periods who are key players.
Click to expand...

It’s a downgrade but nowhere near the gap between Allan/Docuoure and Davies/Gomes. We’re still at the point of questioning if we’ll win if any of James Allan Docuoure are out the line up. I don’t think Leicester fans are in despair if Ndidi misses one game whereas if Allan or Doucoure are out we’re genuinely worried that any team in the league will run over our midfield. If James is out we’re not sure how we’ll score. The disparity in quality between the top players in our squad and their first reserve is too much.
 
Gilbert.. said:
Their squad is far better than Evertons and they have recruited players who slot in and still adapt to their work ethic and style. Even albrighton, who most Everton fans would turn their nose up at, slots in and does a turn.
Evertons midfield is a tug boat in comparison. 80% of our midfield would be lucky to get on their bench.
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Well yeah that’s my point, Albrighton is clearly a very average PL player and he has played most weeks for them this season due to injuries, so it makes a mockery of the idea that you need 1-11 top drawer players out on the pitch to have a chance of playing well. They have plenty of players that are average on paper performing above their level, that is good management.
 
MikeH72 said:
Well yeah that’s my point, Albrighton is clearly a very average PL player and he has played most weeks for them this season due to injuries, so it makes a mockery of the idea that you need 1-11 top drawer players out on the pitch to have a chance of playing well. They have plenty of players that are average on paper performing above their level, that is good management.
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And recruitment.
This club has this summer to try and push your iwobis and gomes out. Its an absolute must.
 

Saint Domingo said:
Ive got no problem with them either when they’re used effectively. What I didn’t tolls to see was our previous style of ply which would be the keeper rolling it out to a centreback who would then line up a long punt into a corner and have all nine other players running after it. That goes nowhere against top sides as we’ve seen.

Sure our football has broken down loads of times this season but a lot of the errors have been made from us trying to at least play out. Yes we end up going back to the keeper way too much but with better players this happens less and less and before you know it you have a team who can keep the ball along the back line and find the likes of James in space to spring attacking players, we’ve seen more through balls this season than an at any point since Martinez and Deulofeu were here.

Carlo takes criticism for not working on a style of play or implementing a philosophy. I think he has taken a harder choice to try and train some principles of possession based football into players but ultimately they’re not good enough. I still remember Keane and Siggurdson somehow both falling over a stationary ball agaisnt Palace that they were both favourites to win and we ended up defending a counterattack because the simple truth is that apart from a few players, most of the squad cannot handle playing a possession game.

Coleman’s technique is utterly abysmal and he struggles to find a pass and finds crossing a ball impossible. Siggurdson is lucky if he ever sees a second touch after his abysmal first one. Ditto Gomes, who wouldn’t be able to not overhit a 5 yard ball even if he did get a pass off. Davies the same. They all know this so they panic and go back to the defenders where we have Baresi himself Michael Keane ready to take an uncertain touch and lunge after it.

At the moment it’s a chain with several broken links but if we replace even one of them let’s say the right back for example, suddenly he’s played a decent ball infield and the midfielder had received it with a bit more time. That means they can then play slightly better ball to the next person. Rather than this cos tang hot potato we have now, the patterns Ancelotti coaches them to ply are suddenly looking a lot easier. It results in attackers getting the ball with more time to fishing better.
Click to expand...
Ancelotti is not a manager who favors ball possession, but who likes his teams to be more direct. Of course there are nuances here, but even in Real Madrid he favored a more direct style. They played counter-football, which he was eventually criticized for. So I can hardly imagine him starting to implement it at Everton.

I will not criticize Ancelotti for the results. Considering the injury situation, we have taken a lot of points, which I agree with you. But I think we have also been extremely lucky with the results. What I am more skeptical of, and here I hope I am wrong, is that with this type of football we have reached the ceiling. With this type of football, we have not laid any foundation that we can develop further next season. In many ways, we have sacrificed long-term success for short-term "success". The same can be said about player logistics.

This is where I think Leicester have done a lot right. They have acknowledged that they can not compete with the big clubs financially, and must therefore have a completely different model. They have a clear football philosophy, and allow players to develop within this framework. They have a clear and distinct player logistics, and buy players who are mostly in the right age group, develop them, and sell them expensively.

Since they have a manger with a clear football philosophy, they also know what types of players they want and how they can use them and develop them. If, for example, we had brought a similar player like Tielemans (who was not such a good football player in Monaco) to today's Everton, do you think he would have been a success?
 

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