2019/20 Carlo Ancelotti

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imagine you’re Mason Holgate and you’ve had years of Martinez and Silva telling you stuff about zonal marking making you look like a fool Eve try week then Ancelotti comes in and just lays down the art of defending and turns you into one of the best centrebacks in the league in a few months.

I actually think Silva was good at setting teams up, but they just had no flexibility on the pitch. We often looked really good first half, but if a goal went in, or it didn't go our way, we would go to pieces in the 2nd half. I suspect that they didn't really trust the manager. Some rumours that he wouldn't shout at half time etc.

We look much calmer under Ancelotti. I mean the shape is very good but it stays very good through the game. I think they believe in what he does. The last 2 games, in honesty we got better as the game went on. At times we were under the cosh, but nobody panicked. We just kept going. That says a lot for the manager and players. We are also playing a system that helps a lot of the players, which is good as well.

We are fortunate to have a manager like him, and in truth he seems to be really relishing working with younger players, which is a big plus, as our previous manager, you never really got that sense. I'm really pleased for Holgate, but also Keane.
 
I actually think Silva was good at setting teams up, but they just had no flexibility on the pitch. We often looked really good first half, but if a goal went in, or it didn't go our way, we would go to pieces in the 2nd half. I suspect that they didn't really trust the manager. Some rumours that he wouldn't shout at half time etc.

We look much calmer under Ancelotti. I mean the shape is very good but it stays very good through the game. I think they believe in what he does. The last 2 games, in honesty we got better as the game went on. At times we were under the cosh, but nobody panicked. We just kept going. That says a lot for the manager and players. We are also playing a system that helps a lot of the players, which is good as well.

We are fortunate to have a manager like him, and in truth he seems to be really relishing working with younger players, which is a big plus, as our previous manager, you never really got that sense. I'm really pleased for Holgate, but also Keane.

Silva was very unlucky. The Pickford incident at Anfield tarnished what was probably one of the best displays by anyone at Anfield for ages were we outplayed a smack in form Liverpool and should have been 2 up if Mina or Gomes had headed in. Even the 5-2, at 2-1 down we’re dominating play and Calvert Lewin is brought down, that’s 2-2 and we’re against ten men in the absolute ascendancy. Instead we’re cheated out of it and Liverpool go to 3-1 and game over. He lost Gomes and Gbamin as soon as he had them to injury and barely had Delph fit at all.

I think he was a talented coach and knew how to go up against top opposition but ultimately injuries, bad luck, and some really bad performances did for him and like Koeman before him he showed he couldn’t change it round. If things had gone differently he might have got into a positive virtuous circle and we’d be talking about how good he was. Instead he got caught in the Everton death spiral and was gone.
 
Silva was very unlucky. The Pickford incident at Anfield tarnished what was probably one of the best displays by anyone at Anfield for ages were we outplayed a smack in form Liverpool and should have been 2 up if Mina or Gomes had headed in. Even the 5-2, at 2-1 down we’re dominating play and Calvert Lewin is brought down, that’s 2-2 and we’re against ten men in the absolute ascendancy. Instead we’re cheated out of it and Liverpool go to 3-1 and game over. He lost Gomes and Gbamin as soon as he had them to injury and barely had Delph fit at all.

I think he was a talented coach and knew how to go up against top opposition but ultimately injuries, bad luck, and some really bad performances did for him and like Koeman before him he showed he couldn’t change it round. If things had gone differently he might have got into a positive virtuous circle and we’d be talking about how good he was. Instead he got caught in the Everton death spiral and was gone.

All very fair. I have mixed views on Silva. I wrote something more substantial for the home page, but essentially it was that he's a really good coach and a really terrible manager. You could see he set teams up well, players liked him, he worked hard on the training pitch etc. However he was not in the least bit adaptable and managed games awfully.

I saw a stat that we were bottom in 2nd half games and 4th for the first half this season under him. I mean that level of difference, I looked over the last 10 years has never been seen, and never even been close (I mean sometimes you get a side who say 5th first half, 12th second half or vice versa). To have those numbers, I think underlined his inept man management.

Pickford killed him in that game, and in honesty in the follow up game at Newcastle. Had we won there we may have had the momentum to have qualified for Europe and it's a different story. I think he was unlucky, but I also think there's a reason managers are unlucky and a lot of it is that they just don't manage games well. At Anfield last seaoson, they had ran out of ideas. Taken Salah off, thrown Origi on. Completely out of ideas and Silva had done a complete number on Klopp and LIverpool who'd get 98 points.

It was some going, but I never felt he was ruthless enough in the dressing room. We allowed ourselves to completely fall away after that.

I agree with you though, he's a young manager with lots of promise who hopefully will get better at man managing. If he goes to Benfica, where he has far superior players to the rest of the league, he will do well. His teams will be out of site due to the set up most weeks so game management won't come into it, and when teams win they gain confidence.

He was also unlucky as you say with injuries. I mean we sell Gana, buy a replacement, who doesn't play. The issue is, he's not adaptable enough to make sacrifices to get teams over the line. Thats what you have to do a bit with a middling rank team, with a lot of average players. Sending them out to try and play like Liverpool just hammers the confidence. You try to get Keane to play like Van Dijk, or Ramos and he's hideous. Have him trying to play like David Weir, and you know he looks ok.

I think thats the advantage of Ancelotti really. He's a players managers. He looks at the squad and doesn't ask them to do things they are incapable of, and builds a system around their collective abilities. We are blagging it a little bit in the middle of midfield, so he asks his two wide players to tuck in more to help them. He's too experienced, and too successful to try and get bogged down trying to perfect some magic formula of a system when you can see it patently won't work.

I think this works for us quite well. Yes we have a lot of deadwood, but a big problem in that is that we have coaches, who've been stubborn in how they want to play, bought players in and just discarded the rest. In fairness to Ancelotti he's really tried with each player to give them a chance and he ought to be credited with that. With the likes of Calvert Lewin, Holgate, Mina, hopefully Keane he may have saved their career and us adding 4 more players to the never ending sell pile. Hopefully Iwobi and Bernard can be added to the save list too, and we can work on a manageable kevel of recruitment each summer.

But yes it wasn't all bad with Silva, but lets be honest, if we put that performance in against Norwich last week we lose that game under Silva as they don't have the confidence to just keep following the instructions. We had to play well to win.
 

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