one of the reasons I liked ancelotti was that he didn’t come with any set philosophy - i’d had enough enough of the likes of Martinez and Silva with their almost puritanical zeal to play a specific way irrespective of the game conditions, capability of our own team and strengths of the opposition.
that’s why yesterday’s tactics of 5 at the back concerned me greatly - that wasn’t pragmatic it was just plain wrong. Who could have watched the previous two games and thought that that formation had worked well. It’s a formation where the defence remains as porous as ever, we’re outnumbered in the middle of the park and we can’t play out from the back.
burnley simply pressed us knowing that the ball would end up with Pickford who would hump it to calvert lewin who, with no-one within 20 yds of him, would lose it.
the delph injury prevented us from losing to a pretty limited and poor team.
He obviously needs to time to shape his own side but in the meantime- let’s get the basics done - close the gaps between our defenders, tell the full backs to sit, lets have a more structured formation, more consistent selection at the back, be a bit more aggressive in our pressing,tackling and let’s try and get a bit of legs into the side - it could mean bringing Davies into the midfield v Chelsea and bringing James on for the last 30 for example.
It’s not easy with this current squad of players but imo they’re still comfortably better than half this league.
