2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[dutchblue54]

Just read there that his ex-wife (Davide's mum) passed away this morning. Apparently they flew straight to Italy after the City game to be with her.

Terrible my thoughts are with them.

yeah terrible news.
Carl was supposed to sit down with Brands yesterday or today about Olsen, King and Coleman amongst other transfer stuff. Maybe Brands can host a Zoom call with GOT members instead to discuss lol

 

[paulbefc]

Had a debate on twitter - stupidly - about this last night. Someone saying that we'd all be chuffed with 59 points if offered it at the start of the season.

It means nothing without context. Had 59 points meant we finished sixth, I'm sure we'd all have taken it. But it meant we finished 10th with a negative goal difference.

Calling out league position alone without context, it doesn't sound great. It implies we were nowhere near the European spots and as much competing with the likes of Wolves as we were Spurs. We weren't though. We were 3 points of 7th, 7 off 5th and 10 points off 3rd.

So we finished 10th, but were as close to 2nd as we were to 12th on points won. We were closer to 7th than we were 11th.

 

[Caolam]

Calling out league position alone without context, it doesn't sound great. It implies we were nowhere near the European spots and as much competing with the likes of Wolves as we were Spurs. We weren't though. We were 3 points of 7th, 7 off 5th and 10 points off 3rd.

So we finished 10th, but were as close to 2nd as we were to 12th on points won. We were closer to 7th than we were 11th.

I don’t think those of us who feel disappointed in this season are focusing on points garnered or the position in which we finished, I for one feel disappointed in the way we lost certain games. We obviously improved as a squad as we were beating teams we were unable to compete with in recent seasons. We have obviously improved as we were winning games away from home and amassing more points than last year.
We conceded in some games without a fight, we appeared to be disinterested at the times when we were going into must win games against inferior teams.
That is my overriding disappointment in the season just ended. That and the fact that Carlo had to come up with such a dire way of playing because he knows he can’t trust cert players to play in a more expansive manner.
My hopes for next season are that we get rid of a significant number of players and bring in people who have the ability and the desire to play in a way that reflects Carlo’s style of play. If I was told that we wouldn’t win anything next year but we would be there competing and not capitulating I would be content provided it was a step on the road and not the end goal.

 

[RomanReigns]

In many ways the 59 points doesn’t even really tell the full story

It makes it look like we had a good season when the reality is we struggled in about 35 out of the 38 games and we won 12 games by a 1 goal margin and defending for our lives in every single one of those wins.

We could have quite easily had about 40-45 points. There were not many games where you came away saying we should have won that one cos we battered them.

 

[arbok]

Calling out league position alone without context, it doesn't sound great. It implies we were nowhere near the European spots and as much competing with the likes of Wolves as we were Spurs. We weren't though. We were 3 points of 7th, 7 off 5th and 10 points off 3rd.

So we finished 10th, but were as close to 2nd as we were to 12th on points won. We were closer to 7th than we were 11th.

We ended up with a lot of points sure, but can anyone say we didn't deserve 10th? Given we couldn't lost so many home games and lost to 5 or 6 bottom half teams, we definitely deserve 10th, so I think trying to 'justify' that we were close is a waste of time. The football was terrible second half of the season. I think he just overestimated us, we were doing well in the first half of the season, and I think it would have been very tough to get someone in anyway. Maybe we could have got Jesse Lingard actually I think he's a good fit to give Richarlison competition.

I also wanted to say i disagree with people who say Carlo doesn't have a 'style'. No its not like Guardiola or Klopp, but Carlo definitely has a style that he carried throughout all of his previous tenures. It's about balance and finding a formation that fits his best players. He rarely likes to leave his best players on the bench, when he does its for rotation. That said this second half of the season, with lots of injuries to the midfield and forward positions, that probably forced his hand to play defensively. Anyone that thinks Carlo's teams can't play attractive football have a very short term memory. That 2005 Milan team that yes unfortunately lost to Liverpool was the best in the world at the time.

 

[phil_t98]

In many ways the 59 points doesn’t even really tell the full story

It makes it look like we had a good season when the reality is we struggled in about 35 out of the 38 games and we won 12 games by a 1 goal margin and defending for our lives in every single one of those wins.

We could have quite easily had about 40-45 points. There were not many games where you came away saying we should have won that one cos we battered them.

Same could of been said of games were we should of took the points but didn’t. Easy to look at it both ways

 

[MikeH72]

Same could of been said of games were we should of took the points but didn’t. Easy to look at it both ways

There were about 2 games all season that we deserved to win and failed to.

 

[RomanReigns]

Same could of been said of games were we should of took the points but didn’t. Easy to look at it both ways

Can you list those games. I imagine it ain’t a very long list.

 

[BlueToff]

Calling out league position alone without context, it doesn't sound great. It implies we were nowhere near the European spots and as much competing with the likes of Wolves as we were Spurs. We weren't though. We were 3 points of 7th, 7 off 5th and 10 points off 3rd.

So we finished 10th, but were as close to 2nd as we were to 12th on points won. We were closer to 7th than we were 11th.

I'm not calling out league position without context.

My point is, you can't say that at the start of the season you'd be happy with 'xx' points, because it doesn't guarantee you anything. If you told the Reds at the start of 18-19 that they'd finish with 97 points, but they would lose by one point to Man City, would they have been happy?

You can't treat it like that and to me 10 points in a league where all but 5 teams got more points than they did last year isn't some barometer of success.

Yes, we got 59 points, but so did newly promoted Leeds and finished clear of us on goal difference. A dreadful Arsenal team got 61 points etc.

We might have been 3 points off 7th, but our crap goal difference meant we were never getting it.

The only target we know of that was set at the start of the season wasn't a points total. It was finishing in Europe, so it was a league position. We failed to get that, so the season was a failure.

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

Aint no other manager out there that gets current collective squad of players into European football. We were in the mix until the last day, finally had some good wins against sky six. Failed against Burnley Fulham and Newcastle on physical application and injuries. Hopefully the messiah continues to walk on water, parts the dead sea and shifts some dead wood out in closed season.

 

[paulbefc]

I'm not calling out league position without context.

My point is, you can't say that at the start of the season you'd be happy with 'xx' points, because it doesn't guarantee you anything. If you told the Reds at the start of 18-19 that they'd finish with 97 points, but they would lose by one point to Man City, would they have been happy?

You can't treat it like that and to me 10 points in a league where all but 5 teams got more points than they did last year isn't some barometer of success.

Yes, we got 59 points, but so did newly promoted Leeds and finished clear of us on goal difference. A dreadful Arsenal team got 61 points etc.

We might have been 3 points off 7th, but our crap goal difference meant we were never getting it.

The only target we know of that was set at the start of the season wasn't a points total. It was finishing in Europe, so it was a league position. We failed to get that, so the season was a failure.

I don't disagree that the season was a failure as we were aiming to finish in a European position and didn't. In the end though, the league table shows we missed out by quite a narrow margin, in relative terms. When you consider how close we were to e.g. Leicester in the end, the holes in our squad may have been overestimated by our critics and the job done by our manager underestimated.

I think the goal difference suggests we were lacking quality - but we would be, we were ravaged by injuries and nowhere near a finished article Ancelotti side. I think it shows Ancelotti had to fall back on his own nous to win games when the XI simply weren't good enough and that he was successful I.e. the squad overperformed at times.

I definitely think people, not necessarily you, have been too quick to dismiss a 10 point gain on the basis that it only got us 10th position. It got us much closer to the teams above us and much further away from the teams below us. Thankfully it doesn't tell the full story.

 

[Dixie1sixty]

In many ways the 59 points doesn’t even really tell the full story

It makes it look like we had a good season when the reality is we struggled in about 35 out of the 38 games and we won 12 games by a 1 goal margin and defending for our lives in every single one of those wins.

We could have quite easily had about 40-45 points. There were not many games where you came away saying we should have won that one cos we battered them.

But we didn't...

Christ, this is novel Carlo getting criticised for doing better than he should have.

BOOOOOO

 

[paulbefc]

We ended up with a lot of points sure, but can anyone say we didn't deserve 10th? Given we couldn't lost so many home games and lost to 5 or 6 bottom half teams, we definitely deserve 10th, so I think trying to 'justify' that we were close is a waste of time. The football was terrible second half of the season. I think he just overestimated us, we were doing well in the first half of the season, and I think it would have been very tough to get someone in anyway. Maybe we could have got Jesse Lingard actually I think he's a good fit to give Richarlison competition.

I don't think it is a waste of time. It shows that we're actually not far off the teams above us and miles ahead of the ones below. It proves that we improved our side notably last summer and that our manager did a fair job and more importantly closed the gap on the sides above us.

I don't think 10th position tells you the whole story. Leicester finished 9th the season before they finished 5th in consecutive seasons, winning a trophy.

 

[Moonlight dribbler]

You finished exactly where you should have! mid table

I don't think it is a waste of time. It shows that we're actually not far off the teams above us and mules ahead of the ones below. It proves that we improved our side notably last summer and that our manager did a fair job and more importantly closed the gap on the sides above us.

I don't think 10th position tells you the whole story. Leicester finished 9th the season before they finished 5th in consecutive seasons, winning a trophy.

If Everton finished 9th next season. Would they hold their nerve in the directors box? I have a feeling the improvements will be small and then sky rocket. Kind of 9th, then 7th, then 3rd, then 1st.

 

[paulbefc]

I don’t think those of us who feel disappointed in this season are focusing on points garnered or the position in which we finished, I for one feel disappointed in the way we lost certain games. We obviously improved as a squad as we were beating teams we were unable to compete with in recent seasons. We have obviously improved as we were winning games away from home and amassing more points than last year.
We conceded in some games without a fight, we appeared to be disinterested at the times when we were going into must win games against inferior teams.
That is my overriding disappointment in the season just ended. That and the fact that Carlo had to come up with such a dire way of playing because he knows he can’t trust cert players to play in a more expansive manner.
My hopes for next season are that we get rid of a significant number of players and bring in people who have the ability and the desire to play in a way that reflects Carlo’s style of play. If I was told that we wouldn’t win anything next year but we would be there competing and not capitulating I would be content provided it was a step on the road and not the end goal.

I agree in general and particularly with the bolded. There were some genuinely horrific displays in there.

If there's one big doubt I still have in the back of my mind about Everton players that never goes away, it's that I don't really trust them to be up for it when it's time to establish themselves as contenders for serious achievements. They did break a couple of serious mental blocks this year at Anfield and the Emirates though.