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See I get that, and I'm genuinely not having a go at Ancelotti here, but that's his job isn't it? I mean the squad is the squad, we knew what we were asking him to work with and he knew what we had. We're not going to go out and get him a whole new team this summer, he's still going to have these issues next year, and the year after. All managers do. Unless you're at City or Real Madrid, the chances are you're going to have a decent number of players in your squad who in an ideal world you wouldn't touch with a barge pole. Again it's not a criticism of Ancelotti, I just think we need to stop with the 'what do you expect him to do with these players' line, because these are the players we've got.It’s all well and good but if you have a team full of snails who don’t want to or refuse to dig deep in the trenches when we are on the back foot then what else can he do? He’s not going to suddenly turn Sigurdsson into a decent Dynamo playmaker, he’s not going to turn Andre Gomes into a quick agile defensive midfielder, he’s not gonna turn Alex Iwobi into a fast paced highly confident winger who just runs at people constantly and gets back to help out defensively when needed. This is what he’s having to work with recently due to injuries and players badly out of form.
I worry that Ancelotti in two of his three signings (Allan and James) doesn't see that if you add 2 no-paced players to a first team that is already lacking in pace it will catch up with you.
This is basic stuff in the PL: any player you sign must have a serious turn of pace. Yes, you can get away with carrying one in a first team who has great technical ability and is essential in getting a team to play a certain way, but by and large we are more reliant on no-paced players than most other teams in the top half.
We are in the European places with a game in hand and in your eyes we have been atrocious.With Europe pretty much a pipe dream now and the cup having a major hill to climb I'd like to see him move away from trying to scrape and claw for every point and instead try to develop the team a bit.
Imagine logging into the Carlo thread after the newcastle * 2, West Ham, villa, Fulham games?Imagine logging on and coming into the carlo thread feeling high and mighty cause we didn't beat one the best teams in the world.
See I get that, and I'm genuinely not having a go at Ancelotti here, but that's his job isn't it? I mean the squad is the squad, we knew what we were asking him to work with and he knew what we had. We're not going to go out and get him a whole new team this summer, he's still going to have these issues next year, and the year after. All managers do. Unless you're at City or Real Madrid, the chances are you're going to have a decent number of players in your squad who in an ideal world you wouldn't touch with a barge pole. Again it's not a criticism of Ancelotti, I just think we need to stop with the 'what do you expect him to do with these players' line, because these are the players we've got.
Imagine logging into the Carlo thread after the newcastle * 2, West Ham, villa, Fulham games?
most fans are delighted to have him here and rightly so but his game plan isn’t free from critic
I think we can play high pressure football, at least during periods of the match. But there is a middle ground between playing high pressure football and starting the pressure outside your own penalty area. We can e.g. start the pressure 5-10 meters inside the opponent's half.Quite a few have noted the lack of pace and duff players, as well as a quite reactive system deep sitting system ('modern Catenaccio' or otherwise)
Personally I think Carlo is making do with the players he has. They really can't play high pressure footie. A few might, but the rest are too slow.
The problem is we can't get up the pitch when sitting deep because of the same reason, particularly against teams who press. Think back to Leicester winning thevtitje with, on paper, a mostly journeyman squad with a couple of gems. They sat deep, absorbed and then bunted the ball up to Vardy / Kagawa in behind or Mahrez to do his thing. We don't have blistering pace.
You could argue we should be more progressive dictate possession, but bar James the midfield we have isn't capable of the killer pass consistently. More cruelly they'll just lose the ball through being a bit of a donkey / one dimensional, slow and hurried off the ball by PED infused gargoylepressers (or whatever you call it).
Why did you hire and sack 10 different managers over the last 10 seasons Carlo?? You don't get to use the 'first season excuse. We used them up. Its champions league in first season or you're a failure. This 5 points off champions league with a game in hand in February doesn't cut it you transitional bellend.Transitional season hasn't been mentioned much. Let's add this one to the other 25 before it as a transitional season.
It's no good doing it for 15 mins, then getting turned over is it? Also, I suspect the staying deep strategy is because he knows Keane and Mina turn like oil tankers and get done by pace. Long term Godfrey addresses that, but he's arguably not looked ready for CB this season and he's been needed at LB.However, what we do is extreme, and very reactive. We play as we lead the CL final 1-0, and there is 1 min of overtime left. The distance up to the opponent's goal is so long that the players need binoculars to orient themselves.
We are also not very good at counterattacks. So I simply do not understand the rationale behind the plan.