Similar to the end of last season, Ancelotti is giving some players chances but he is seeing who is and isn’t performing for him. He’s not stupid, he’ll wield the axe just like he did for Schneiderlin and others as soon as he has some better options. Look how many minutes Davies is getting now for example. I think he’s trying to do a whole revolution of culture and attitude without upsetting what are some fragile egos and losing the players like other managers have done. It’s a fine line.
The one thing I’d say for some of these players is that the likes of DCL Holgate Coleman and Keane have massively raised their game for Carlo to a level where people are happy for them to be in the first 11 again. It raises serious question marks over the players like Iwobi Sigurdsson and Bernard who have not improved their performances at all.
Carlo will find the answers though. This season was always going to be about getting back into Europe and shifting out more of the rotten core who have plagued this club for years.
I saw something, I believe in the Athletic that said as much about lockdown. That Ancelotti knowingly used it as an experiment. It's little things like that that make me think he sees this as a medium-long term project. You compare it to Allardyce who really only did what was right for the next game but with little idea of a long term plan.
We learnt quite a bit about certain players on Saturday. Iwobi, Sigurdsson and Bernard are ok coming on in games, around better players but don't give us what we need from the start. The problem is, we don't currently have a lot of alternatives. It's the limitation of the squad.
Id expect Bernard to go in January.
