Was it arrogance when Ancelotti stuck to playing utterly gash football for the final 3 months of the season ?
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Was it arrogance when Ancelotti stuck to playing utterly gash football for the final 3 months of the season ?
Gave flapper Pickford more space.
It's about player care mate. Rest and recuperation. Now, I can't just blame the medical dept because a lot of it is recruitment. For example, they need Coleman to be fit so if he's 70% he'll be rushed back, etc. That's our issue.
But they really, really cocked up on Gbamin. The lad should have been out for 6 weeks with an initial quad injury. The medical department decided against surgery, had him back in training and then he aggravated the injury. And you know what, it's exactly what's happened with Dom now... the hope is that Dom's isn't too serious but basically the '4-5 week' line that Benitez spun is the time they're hoping that Dom will be back in if he doesn't need surgery. But if this thing doesn't clear up, then he's going to need surgery and it'll be January at least.
What a daft response.
Any team of professional footballers can become effective at set plays. Trying to play free flowing attacking football with our squad is another matter altogether. Ancelotti got it wrong at times and we were extremely poor in the run in, but that's got absolutely nothing to do with set pieces.
You can be good at set pieces and still be a bad team. But you can't be bad at set pieces and be a good team. Not in this league anyway.
Tim, along with myself and a few other posters, was one of the only ones in here calling Ancelotti out. We regularly got told we couldn't expect too much etc.
Ancelotti wanted to play better footy, he just had no idea how with the players at his disposal when we came out into the run-in last season. That's a failing of him, totally. It was either backs to the wall stuff (which did work, btw, because we were defensively sound in those matches) or he went the other way and chucked all of our fit attackers on the pitch.
Benitez is definitely setting us out to be a counter-attacking team. Okay. But to do that you need to be defensively sound (we aren't), good from set-pieces (we aren't) and, at least, be able to mix things up which we cannot do. We've averaged 40% possession, Brennan, in nine league games. We've played one team from the 'big six', and played four teams at home that I'd expect to be in a relegation battle come May.
Now I'm not obsessed with having the ball. But there has to be spells in games where you can control it and set the tempo. We've done it in tiny, little flashes, but they've been too few and far between. The 10-passes stat from last week was revealing. Second-lowest team in the league for passing moves of over 10 passes. And 10 passes isn't a lot.
I’ve seen flimsy excuses before but the spin doctors out on parole today have been ludicrous. He’s messed up a perfectly fine set piece system and anyone arguing against that needs a slap.
Ancelotti consistently had us playing dire football week in, week out, for months last season. If it’s arrogant for Benitez to stick to a certain way of playing set pieces, why is it not arrogant for Ancelotti to refuse to change our style of play?
“Daft response” isn’t an answer.
It was always going to happen though. We brought in Benitez. One of the most stubborn, inflexible coaches out there. He has never ever changed from his preferred methods. He is an outdated, inept coach who had his best days 15 years ago.
I'm at the stage where I'm a bit embarassed at how many of our fans want to defend him.
wainy
Player Valuation: £35m
Endless support for a fat Kopite. Horrible.
It was arrogant, where are people saying Ancelotti was amazing in here? You’re just talking absolute nonsense because you have no real argument to stand on here.
Leylo
Player Valuation: £35m
What I don't get is this fella was desperate to join us but when he left the inbreds it was because lack of funds ,has he been told a bag of lies or is there gonna be a big budget coming his way .bloody ell this squad needs strengthing. If there's no money to spend appart from being near his home what's the point. Big signings surely, hopefully
lol
Yeah 100%, the deep-line thing made Pickford look a lot better. Which is fine. Pickford has his strengths and his weaknesses. The point of a team is to cover weaknesses, not expose them.
It's a bit like with Digne. Yeah, he's not been good enough this season, absolutely. But we're saying don't get forward, which is what he's good at, and then just try and defend, which is the weakest part of his game.
It's a very daft response I'm afraid. There are no style points for set pieces. You need to find a way to be good at them and preferably at both ends. They have absolutely nothing to do with how you play in open play.
If we aren't good at them then it doesn't matter if we play like Pep's Barca side. You can't defend badly from set plays and be a good PL side.
Ancelotti had a method that worked. The fact our football in open play was poor to watch is irrelvant to that point. Keep what is working and fix what is failing. Benitez instead tinkered with what was working and there's been no improvement in our general play. In fact our defending as a whole has regressed enormously.
ForeverBlue92
Player Valuation: £80m
Gray picked up a knock before coming off and we dont know how long Gordon had in him - the manager said he struggled to last the full 90 and I see no reason to not believe him as if he had some agenda he could have just played Iwobi from the start like Ancelotti did all last season ahead of him.
All season you've lost your head mate you question my credentials yet im perfectly reasoned at present - this is a 8th-12th side and thats where we'll finish come the seasons end.
If you cant hand the inevitable let downs until the manager is given the funds to properly rebuild the squad of bottle jobs and perennial losers then you need to question if you need to take some time away from Everton for your own sake.
Same for the likes of Zezti who's normally reasoned but has turned into some rabid dog since Benitez lost his first game.
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