2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[The binman chronicles]

God this thread is worse than I thought it would be. Hands up who would have sacked Ole after his first season and how many would now? Give the man time, no one is saying yesterday was faultless display by anyone including Carlo. Everything needs to get better around here and we'll judge after a couple more seasons whether he is or isn't the right man for the job.

 

[ClausThomsen]

Bizarrely, the Villa game rankles with me more than yesterday. We had to go for broke, all out from minute 1 for the victory. We of course didn't. We dropped Davies to bring back Mason Holgate for some unknown reason and we coasted the entire first half and only properly woke up in the last 10 minutes. The lack of urgency came from the bench sadly. He made two changes, a non-goalscoring midfielder for a goal-scoring midfielder and a headless chicken attacker on at right-wing back. It was dreadful.

Yesterday was nearly unforgivable, but it was entirely in-keeping with our home form this season so not unexpected. 5 defenders at home to Sheffield United? If any other manager did that the pitchforks would be out.

Ancellotti does deserve time and his own players, this current group are notorious for dialling it in but can we even trust Marcel Brands to ring the changes? Several of the players that are treading water in this squad are ones he's brought to the club.

Playing three centre-halves at the back isn't necessarily defensive if it gives the fullback/wingback license to get forward and lets them abdicate some defensive work or allows a defensive midfielder to be more attack orientated. And it's a way of getting more height into set-pieces.

That may be more preferential and help the attack more than playing a simply not good enough attacking player who offers nothing to the 11.

Unfortunately the only player with any desire to go forward yesterday was Pickford. The cowardice in possession was shocking and dragged every midfielder backwards as they came looking for the ball that never went forward. Even Digne was stopping and passing sideways once he hit the halfway line. He should be well forward if there's a third central defender to drift left and cover him.

 

[ClausThomsen]

God this thread is worse than I thought it would be. Hands up who would have sacked Ole after his first season and how many would now? Give the man time, no one is saying yesterday was faultless display by anyone including Carlo. Everything needs to get better around here and we'll judge after a couple more seasons whether he is or isn't the right man for the job.

“Kendall and Carter must go. 26,000 stay-away fans can’t be wrong.”

 

[matty1878]

Think I need to stay off this till nxt season tbh. It’s like kids arguin and I include myself btw.

 

[neil999]

Only 3 times in the last 10 years have we had more points than this season

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Yeah I've mentioned before I know an ex Everton player pretty well and he always said that the players loved playing for Moyes because everyone knew exactly what was expected of them. It didn't matter if you were the star man or a bargain basement signing, everyone got treated the same way and everyone had to buy into the team ethic. I obviously don't know for a fact, but looking from the outside it doesn't look like thats the case now. I can certainly imagine that some players think 'why should i have to work twice as hard so James can swan round waiting for the ball' or taking umbrage that James seems to pick and choose his games to some extent. That's not meant to knock James who's clearly a brilliant player, but you have to be really careful with the way you handle those things and i'm not sure we've done it particularly well.

I actually agree regarding James. It's not difficult to imagine that he's getting some form of preferential treatment from the staff and I can't imagine that will always go over too well with at least a section of the squad.

 

[Thomasc]

Think I need to stay off this till nxt season tbh. It’s like kids arguin and I include myself btw.

I wouldn’t worry yourself too much. He isn’t getting sacked or being replaced, that’s very obvious. Every single point about this season which could be made has been made to the point of tedium.

The performances have been shocking but somehow we will finish top 10.
From where we were that’s a slight improvement on the points tally, but if we haven’t seen a significant improvement at least in the personnel and style of football by Christmas then it is time to start calling him out.

 

[kenada_blue]

Only 3 times in the last 10 years have we had more points than this season

Sssshush..points don't matter.

 

[toffee-L]

Playing three centre-halves at the back isn't necessarily defensive if it gives the fullback/wingback license to get forward and lets them abdicate some defensive work or allows a defensive midfielder to be more attack orientated. And it's a way of getting more height into set-pieces.

That may be more preferential and help the attack more than playing a simply not good enough attacking player who offers nothing to the 11.

Unfortunately the only player with any desire to go forward yesterday was Pickford. The cowardice in possession was shocking and dragged every midfielder backwards as they came looking for the ball that never went forward. Even Digne was stopping and passing sideways once he hit the halfway line. He should be well forward if there's a third central defender to drift left and cover him.

This is perfectly true if you're Chelsea and you have fabulous delivery from Reece James on the right and Chilwell/Alonso from the left, Kante doing all of the dirty work by himself in midfield and Jorginho who is excellent at taking the ball off his defenders.

We don't have any of those qualities, not to mention that our most experienced centre back Michael Keane clearly hates playing in a back 3. It also gives far too much attacking responsibility to Seamus Coleman who's output in the final third has been really poor for a long time now. It's also meant dropping Tom Davies who has done very little wrong in the last few months to bring back Mason Holgate who has done a lot wrong in over the same period.

If you don't have the tools at your disposal then in it's a horrible system to play because the extra man at the back, rather than in the middle, always encourages the pass backwards, and our players hardly need an excuse to do that at the best of times!

Call me old fashioned, but if you need to win games then you need to score goals, and ordinarily there's a higher probability of you doing that if you have more numbers further up the pitch. There's certainly a place for the occasional back five ploy, it worked well against West Ham and in some other matches, but against Villa and Sheff Utd, the onus was totally on us. We had to play with reckless abandon and throw caution to the wind. Instead we played with a wall at the back, rolled over and got our tummies tickled.

 

[BlueToff]

It's been an up and down season with injuries etc. But you've heard from Carlo himself, the squad is limited to do anything but be compact and pragmatic.

He's also said he's got an idea to improve the play in the window.

Mentality, ability. He keeps saying these things and the players keep failing. They've failed other managers too.

We've bought horrifically for years. There's no question of that

We aren't pragmatic. Pragmatic is the best way to achieve something. That's not what we are in our home games. We're completely the opposite. Pragmatic would be realising playing Davies helps get the best out of Allan. It would be realising that Richarlison and Dom aren't working together as a pair. It would be realising that we don't want James dropping in to pick the ball up from the CBs. It would be realising that Doucoure should be used to join in with the attack, not play at right-back.

Yeah, he keeps saying these things, yet we keep getting worse.

It's on him as well.

But like our good players - who also take their blame - he'll be here next season. But it's on him to come up with a plan that's going to help us build. That isn't camping on our box and it isn't getting outplayed by genuine dire crap who will struggle in the Championship next season.

He's made some bafflingly bad decisions and his tenure so far has not delivered at all, so he needs to buck his ideas up, stop just saying it's attitude, and change. Because if not we're up the creek without a paddle. Yes, if Carlo can't save us, then maybe it is who can? But we have to start questioning why he keeps setting us up to keep falling. Why not approach the home games like we do the away games? Why is there no evidence that we actually work on ANYTHING other than defending on the edge of our own box?

So I agree with all of your points, but believe my above ones need to be added into that. And let's not bother starting with our DoF yet, he's got the most simple job you could ask for this summer so let's hope he doesn't cock it up.

 

[Stan Lee Park]

I wouldn’t worry yourself too much. He isn’t getting sacked or being replaced, that’s very obvious. Every single point about this season which could be made has been made to the point of tedium.

The performances have been shocking but somehow we will finish top 10.
From where we were that’s a slight improvement on the points tally, but if we haven’t seen a significant improvement at least in the personnel and style of football by Christmas then it is time to start calling him out.

It's certainly time to criticise him now. We should not be expected to put up with such poor displays, negative football and insipid management that is obviously not motivating the team.. He should certainly not be sacked (yet) but he really needs to be improved otherwise he may be accused of living on past glories - a bit like James really.

 

[BlueToff]

God this thread is worse than I thought it would be. Hands up who would have sacked Ole after his first season and how many would now? Give the man time, no one is saying yesterday was faultless display by anyone including Carlo. Everything needs to get better around here and we'll judge after a couple more seasons whether he is or isn't the right man for the job.

Literally nobody has said he should be sacked other than the usual suspects.

But we've just lost our ninth home game of the season and been played off the park by a team who will genuinely do well to finish anywhere near the play-offs next season in the Championship.

His idea of a solution was to bring Sigurdsson on and play him and James in a 4-4-2 without the ball, but funnel our midfielders wide with the ball, leaving another massive gap in the middle of the park that Sheff Utd instantly figured out could be plugged by simply stopping one pass.

 

[catcherintherye]

This sums the whole thing up for me. If we'd had a season like this with Gordon, Nkounkou and Branthwaite playing a fair bit, and 4 summer signings in the Godfrey mould then I'd be pretty optimistic going into next season. A season like this after signing 3 players who were clearly supposed to make an instant impact and with no youth prospects getting any game time at all and I'm genuinely a bit fearful of what's in store. I don't know how we keep getting it so wrong, it's a remarkable talent.

I can't really argue with any of that, and I know you've made the point before. We have explictly prioritised short termism over a more organic process. And that is fair enough, and perhaps even quite smart, but it's not when you ultimately don't hit your objectives. Crucially yesterday, aside from Mina that was our strongest team available too. There are some pretty significant questions to be asked of Ancelotti after that really.

Aside fromthe 3 lads you mention not getting much of a look in, yesterday we started a CB who has not been playing well at right back, and a 33 year old right back on the right wing. I could defend that, and justify it when we had injuries, but I'm really surprised with everyone fit that's the situation we have found ourselves in.

You then factor in, Iwobi and King don't get onto the pitch when we are chasing a goal, and Bernard is only brought on quite late and it looks very odd. I am not really a massive fan of any of the aforementioned 3, but I do struggle to see how Iwobi has much of a future after yesterday. I think we can all assume King and Bernard aren't wanted, but a penny for his thoughts.

 

[Thomasc]

It's certainly time to criticise him now. We should not be expected to put up with such poor displays, negative football and insipid management that is obviously not motivating the team.. He should certainly not be sacked (yet) but he really needs to be improved otherwise he may be accused of living on past glories - a bit like James really.

He gets some grace as he’s had to use awful players like Gomes, Iwobi, Delph (when fit), while at the same time had been let down massively by players he’s put faith in like Richarlison, Gylfi, Holgate etc.

I totally agree that the lack of a playing style is very worrying and that needs to change immediately.
Whether that means 4-5 new first choice players then that is what needs to happen.

 

[Ancelotti]

It’s alright though. We will be able to score a goal against Championship side Sheffield and Fulham when Carlo has spent another £100m. He just can’t do it yet as we have non-league players (apparently - I thought we would be good when Allan, Doucoure etc are back? That’s what you all told me!)