2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[Gilbert..]

We have got to get rid of this slopping shoulders mentality when our play is not coming off during games.

The talent is there, the collective will of the team is not.

Talent is there in some positions. Others its massively lacking. The spine of our defence is awful. Pickford keane and mina. You cant have that and expect to be successful. We have no real width. And certainly no pace.
Relying on the likes of sigurdsson gomes iwobi delpth bernard etc to come in and not only add talent but as you say will to win. Well i think its a lost cause. They dont really have any consistent talent and have most certainly shown they have no will to roll their sleeves up and win.
All comes down again to awful recruitment. Value for money wise easly the worst period in all my years watching Everton.
Massive clear out needed. Sadly not happening overnight

 

[dannyboy]

Talent is there in some positions. Others its massively lacking. The spine of our defence is awful. Pickford keane and mina. You cant have that and expect to be successful. We have no real width. And certainly no pace.
Relying on the likes of sigurdsson gomes iwobi delpth bernard etc to come in and not only add talent but as you say will to win. Well i think its a lost cause. They dont really have any consistent talent and have most certainly shown they have no will to roll their sleeves up and win.
All comes down again to awful recruitment. Value for money wise easly the worst period in all my years watching Everton.
Massive clear out needed. Sadly not happening overnight

Another issue is that DCL and Richarlison have excellent abilities but you´re always going to struggle to get fluid attacking football out of them. Richarlison in particular brings so much to the team but his ability to pick the right pass or option is so often lacking.

 

[Gilbert..]

Another issue is that DCL and Richarlison have excellent abilities but you´re always going to struggle to get fluid attacking football out of them. Richarlison in particular brings so much to the team but his ability to pick the right pass or option is so often lacking.

Least of our problems mate.
We have goals in us. We cant keep them out.
Defensive spine is a real issue.
Personaly i think getting a keeper that brings confidence to those in front is a start.

 

[ElGato]

Find it a bit odd that Ancelotti shifted to a back 3 (5 out of possession). I understand that we are weakest in defence and he wants the extra cover. I also get that he wants to congest that right hand side to give Jameth more license.

But we have played and will continue to play our best football in a 4. The game is won and lost in midfield, and Doucz, Allan and Gomes are good foil for eachother and have a nice balance. Each one seems to fill in the others' blind spots. Those that don't rate Gomes honestly need to take a look at the squad and ask themselves who else plays and how. In our best 11 at the moment and comfortably.

Hope the Burnley game is enlightening for Carlo on this front. He's always been a proponent of picking your best 11 and playing them in their best positions, and as often as injuries will allow. That philosophy seems to have evaporated since the derby. Strange the way the derby does that to us. Does my nut in.

4-3-3 next week. Even if we pick Tom Davies right back

 

[SpongeBob brown shoes]

Think he really needs to drop Pickford and use Nkounkou and Gordon, even if they don't start they offer a plan B instead of Tosun or Davies

If we weren't creating chances then I'd be a lot more worried but we do look good going forward, it's just once we are under pressure you just know the defence is going to bits and Pickford is flapping

 

[GwladysBlue]

Duncan ferguson was here when calvert lewin was nowhere near leagues top scorer.
We get it. It would kill you to say ancelloti has had any impact on him.

Ancelotti has had an impact on DCL, a big impact, but so has Ferguson.

What Ancelotti hasn’t had an effect on is the team because we’re just as bad as last season.

 

[Exeter_Gently]

Least of our problems mate.
We have goals in us. We cant keep them out.
Defensive spine is a real issue.
Personaly i think getting a keeper that brings confidence to those in front is a start.

Our defense without doubt needs strengthening but that being said we actually haven't had a settled back 4 since Carlo arrived. Be nice to just have solid base. It all feels like it built on sand at the minute.

 

[mightymoyes]

anyone reckon we'll see a clean sheet in 2020?

 

[Toffe3m4n]

Find it a bit odd that Ancelotti shifted to a back 3 (5 out of possession). I understand that we are weakest in defence and he wants the extra cover. I also get that he wants to congest that right hand side to give Jameth more license.

But we have played and will continue to play our best football in a 4. The game is won and lost in midfield, and Doucz, Allan and Gomes are good foil for eachother and have a nice balance. Each one seems to fill in the others' blind spots. Those that don't rate Gomes honestly need to take a look at the squad and ask themselves who else plays and how. In our best 11 at the moment and comfortably.

Hope the Burnley game is enlightening for Carlo on this front. He's always been a proponent of picking your best 11 and playing them in their best positions, and as often as injuries will allow. That philosophy seems to have evaporated since the derby. Strange the way the derby does that to us. Does my nut in.

4-3-3 next week. Even if we pick Tom Davies right back

Agree. I think the 3-4-3 experiment is failing somewhat - it's only going to be effective against certain teams and only then with certain personnel.

Long term we need to revert to 4-3-3 and bring in better quality for that system. The only other variation on that I'd really want to see is 4-2-3-1 - we need to try and stick with a flat back 4 wherever possible.

 

[Gilbert..]

Our defense without doubt needs strengthening but that being said we actually haven't had a settled back 4 since Carlo arrived. Be nice to just have solid base. It all feels like it built on sand at the minute.

Off the top of my head i think our goal difference has been negative for all of one of the past 5 seasons.

 

[matty1878]

Ancelotti has had an impact on DCL, a big impact, but so has Ferguson.

What Ancelotti hasn’t had an effect on is the team because we’re just as bad as last season.

yearh were in the bottom 3 aren’t we soft lad.

 

[everton1953]

Doomed probably, oh no there are 4 teams worse than us, so no panic then. Is anyone panicking?

 

[brieverton]

It's hard to be objective at times as we all come at this with strong opinions and biases.

He is 3 players into a rebuild that is required to be almost total.

That said, I expected a little more. Signs of progress if not real progress.

It's going on a long time now that any Everton manager was able to get a baseline level of performance week on week from the squad at their disposal. I can forgive tinkering with selections and formations, but we still look sluggish and a little less than 100% committed in games too often. We are painfully slow in speed of transition and speed of thought. Too often I feel that they don't care enough about getting a result. The Leeds game was a prime example. We either couldn't or wouldn't match their energy.

We have to be patient, but any hope I had that Ancelotti could get an extra 10-20% from some of the players, through coaching and motivation, or both, seems to have gone by the wayside. We have reverted back to the mean, and are looking to our key players too often to dig us out of trouble.

When we look bad, we still look really bad, pitiful at times. I thought that was behind us at least.

There is nothing for it only a lot of hard work from Ancelotti, the staff, and players. Maybe we get one or two more in in January. I think we are at a defining moment now though, as we can't really drift along as we are, without sustained progress being on the horizon.

 

[luuk_deventer]

In my opinion, the Everton team is stronger than it is showing. This is why the spotlight is on Ancelotti. Although he is only 1 year in to the job, yes, and needs some more time, yes, I think the team can do better.

If you look at the teams who have finished in the top 7 and qualified for the Europa League in recent years, they have done so with players like these playing 20-25+ games

Wolves 2018/19: Roman Saiss, Ryan Bennett, Wily Boly, Jonny, Morgan Gibbs-White, Helder Costa, Cavaleiro

Burnley 2017/18: Stephen Ward, Matt Lowton, Jeff Hendrick, Jack Cork, Johann Gudmundsson, Ashley Barnes

West Ham: 2015/16: Adrian, James Tomkins, Angelo Ogbonna, Aaron Cresswell, Pedro Obiang, Cheikhou Kouyate, Mark Noble, Andy Carroll

Southampton: 2014/15 and 2015/16: Jose Fonte, Nathaniel Clyne, Maya Yoshida, Ryan Bertrand, Cedric, Morgan Schneiderlin, Steven Davis, Jordy Clasie, Graziano Pelle, Shane Long

Excluding the better, ever-present players in those teams, who are comparable with Evertons better players too (like Richarlison, Calvert Lewin, James, Allan, Digne) are the players listed above significantly better than Pickford, Coleman, Holgate, Godfrey, Doucoure, Davies, Gomes, Bernard, Sigurdsson, Tosun?

If the answer to that question is no, then it is up to Ancelotti to be sure that they are motivated and organised when they are on the pitch.

 

[Lanolin]

Least of our problems mate.
We have goals in us. We cant keep them out.
Defensive spine is a real issue.
Personaly i think getting a keeper that brings confidence to those in front is a start.

Agree on the keeper, but not entirely with the rest. Firstly the goals have dried up a bit, we've only scored 6 in our last 6 and 3 of those were in the first half against a frankly awful Fulham side. We haven't scored more than once in any of the other 5 games, despite needing to in all of them. Also one of the major issues we've had defensively is our inability to keep hold of the ball. It's not just the defenders who are responsible, we invite pressure on ourselves by making poor decisions on the ball over and over again in games.