GwladysBlue
Player Valuation: £70m
Carlo isn’t doing us a favour by being here. He’s getting paid a huge wage to improve the team, something he is failing miserably at.
If he doesn’t deliver, he will rightfully be sacked.
- Status
If he doesn’t deliver, he will rightfully be sacked.
neil999
Player Valuation: £80m
Shall we get Rogers in? He did lose to Fulham last night, so you prob would have him sacked as well.... Oh well
I think this is spot on. You can imagine the frustration Carlo must feel. He needs players who are good enough to deserve the right to be managed/coached by him. It's a bit like Glenn Hoddle berating players who couldn't do what he was still capable of doing even after he was no longer playing. But at least the board will be aware of the danger of not going after the right players.
It sickens me to see how OGS is being rescued almost singlehandedly by Cavani. That's the sort of quality needed these days.
Should Ancelotti stick with Iwobi and Davies in unfamiliar wing-back roles?
By Patrick Boyland 6h ago[Paid Content - Blacklisted]/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/comment-icon@2x.png 3 [Paid Content - Blacklisted]/app/themes/athletic/assets/img/save-icon@2x.png
Even by his own admission, Alex Iwobi was still learning on the job.
In the absence of injured captain Seamus Coleman, the Nigeria international filled in at right wing-back in Everton’s 3-2 win over Fulham — his first appearance in the unfamiliar role since arriving at Goodison Park in the summer of 2019.
Iwobi’s performance at Craven Cottage would offer his manager cause for optimism. Particularly in attack, the former Arsenal man exhibited the kind of dynamism needed to add impetus from deep, helping to knit together the move that resulted in Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s second goal. But for all the promise, even Iwobi acknowledged his adaptation remained a work in progress.
“I played right wing-back a couple of times with Arsenal, they wanted me to bomb on and, like I was doing in the first half, get crosses in and run down the line with the ball,” Iwobi explained after the win. “Sometimes, with my defensive position, I wouldn’t know where to be but with my team-mates helping and talking it was a lot easier.”
Iwobi was forced to shift again on Saturday, this time experiencing a new position entirely. A training-ground injury to Lucas Digne, provisionally expected to keep the Frenchman out for two to three months, saw the 24-year-old move to the opposite flank against Leeds United.
Tom Davies, a central midfielder by trade, was asked to fill in on the other side.
Unsurprisingly, Leeds made the most of their opportunity to exploit the makeshift pairing. In just 45 minutes of play, they carved out five clear-cut chances down the flanks. After 10 minutes, Jack Harrison fired wide of an open goal after a quick break from Raphinha down the right had given them a three-on-two and left the Leeds attacker in acres of space on the left.
Ten minutes later, a mix-up down the Everton right presented Patrick Bamford with a golden chance that he fired at Jordan Pickford
Luke Ayling set up Raphinha for a header saved by Pickford and, in the same move, Harrison saw his shot cleared off the line by Ben Godfrey. Finally, from an unopposed cross on the left wing, Harrison also rose above Iwobi to power his header against the post.
By the end, it was Everton’s worst defensive display in almost three years, or 101 Premier League games, in terms of expected goals against (xGA), a statistic that measures the number of goals a team is expected to have conceded based on the quality and quantity of shots they have faced. Against Leeds, Everton’s xGA was 3.21. Given the match played out tactically as a battle between Leeds’ strongest element and Everton’s current Achilles’ heel, it is a wonder Ancelotti expected it to be any different.
It has left several burning questions among those that follow the club, namely:
Why have Iwobi and Davies been asked to adapt to new positions?
And why have Jonjoe Kenny and Niels Nkounkou, two full-backs by trade, been snubbed in their stead?
Some of those close to the Everton squad suggest that — as with teenage winger Anthony Gordon — Nkounkou and Kenny have ended up being collateral damage as Ancelotti aims to improve a leaky defence that is without a clean sheet since the first game of the season. They suggest that, in his attempts to tighten up, he has taken a caution-first approach and gone for experience. And there is probably an element of truth in that argument.
Iwobi is seen as a reliable pair of hands by Ancelotti, someone who trains well, has been tasked with replicating those displays at Finch Farm consistently in Premier League games, and is mobile enough to play in a range of positions. Despite his relative paucity of minutes at the start of the season, the Nigerian is also viewed as a reliable passer of the ball.
Everton channel so many attacks down the flanks that Ancelotti has favoured those who can provide quick supply to Richarlison, James Rodriguez and Calvert-Lewin. According to Opta, Iwobi has made more passes ending up in the final third this season (58) than the likes of Coleman (41) and Gylfi Sigurdsson (55). It is still some way off Digne’s total of 113, but he also offers a direct running option from deep too. According to Twenty3, Iwobi attempts 5.6 dribbles per 90 minutes (the second-best of any defender in the squad behind Nkounkou) at a high success rate of 84 per cent. For context, Richarlison, a slightly more frequent dribbler, completes 81 per cent of his.
Davies, meanwhile, has earned the trust of his manager with a string of effective displays, including from the start against Brighton & Hove Albion and off the bench at Fulham. Versatile — he played in several different positions coming through the Everton academy despite specialising as a central midfielder — and a tireless worker, the Liverpool-born midfielder set up two chances for team-mates on Saturday with surging runs from his new role. It was from Davies’ cross that Abdoulaye Doucoure nearly opened the scoring early on against Leeds.
It is clear Iwobi and Davies have their merits, even in makeshift roles but the question for Ancelotti is whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
Both will need time to adapt to the new position and in the meantime, opposition sides, like Leeds before them, will look to target Everton’s weak point. Davies was the most advanced of any Everton player when crossing the ball for Doucoure’s early chance, placing emphasis on others to cover his position. To master the new system, Everton’s central defenders will be tasked with filling in the gaps left by the wing-backs, who are in turn handed considerable responsibility in attack. That simply will not happen overnight.
Saturday’s game offered a stark contrast between the two sides, with Leeds fully versed in the intricacies of their system and Everton effectively having to learn the ropes as they went along. No more so was that the case than with Davies and Iwobi, who suffered mixed fortunes.
In attempting to replace the near-irreplaceable Digne and solve his team’s defensive woes, Ancelotti has moved far away from the shape and principles that guided Everton’s early-season form. At best, they now look like a pale imitation of the team that won their first seven in all competitions. At worst, they have decisively changed course, negating some of their strongest elements in the process and occasionally looking a bit muddled.
Only two sides in the league (Chelsea and Manchester United) have won more aerial duels than Everton (57 per cent). Few forwards, meanwhile, are as dangerous from crosses as Calvert-Lewin. Through Digne, a master of that particular art, Everton’s forwards were afforded a regular supply of ammunition. In his absence, Iwobi and Davies managed just three crosses combined against Leeds, limiting the potential potency of the league’s top scorer, who thrives on dangerous balls into the six-yard box.
For all the defensive issues, it is this that could well end up worrying the Everton coaching staff just as much, particularly if a defensive compromise has limited results and an obvious detrimental impact on the team’s attacking potency.
With his side porous at the back and stunted up front, Ancelotti is now faced with a dilemma at both ends of the pitch.
Does he stick or twist? Persevere with this system and this starting line-up to allow players the chance to get properly up to speed, or revert to type? And for how long can this rot continue before change becomes a necessity?
As Nkounkou and Kenny wait in the wings, time will tell whether the issues seen on Saturday will be enough to make the Everton manager think again.
But they will certainly have given him food for thought.
Death
I'll take down dat coal powered MG, I tel u Hwat
5th is Moyes default position with poorly run clubs. There’s no shame in being behind him. It’s why we worshiped him when he was here. He finishes above the majority of teams that out spend him it’s his thing.
The guy who prevented it from being embarrassing against Leeds ? I'm with you on wanting to replace him but right now I'm not sure that he 8a the most immediate problem.
HumbleWedbetters
Player Valuation: £5m
It feels like like top 7 is a great position for a club like west ham and they are taking penknives to gunfights - spending a few quid on players whilst making their manager one of the 4th highest paid in the league.
They may even tease their fans with a semi final or even a final to only go and bottle it completely.
I'll stick with Carlo ta!
Top7 is a great position for Everton as well. Spending half a billion mostly on players who wouldn't improve a championship side.
Toffe3m4n
Player Valuation: £70m
Hard to disagree with Michael Ball here..
www.liverpoolecho.co.uk
Lottery football won't win points and Ancelotti must question squad
The first part of our latest column from Michael Ball discusses Everton's recent 1-0 defeat to Leeds United at Goodison Park and how Carlo Ancelotti needs to address it
West Ham have spent some big money on dross too. Haller and Felipe Anderson etc. Bowen looks great business though.
Agree Everton’s recruitment has been insane but then again we could sign Messi and he’d turn out awful.
Saint Domingo
Player Valuation: £80m
Think I showed some stats earlier that had Ancelotti at 1.5 ppg over 29 league games. That’s 60 points a season. Considering we’ve not showed that form since Koeman’s first season it seems like rather than failing miserably he’s dragged us up a level just by walking through the door. He’s just getting started.
Let’s not let a silly thing like facts and statistics get in the way of all this negativity please.
GwladysBlue
Player Valuation: £70m
He hasn’t dragged us anywhere. We finished 12th last year, went out of the FA Cup at the first time of asking to a bunch of kids and we now find ourselves midtable again on the second worst run of form in the league.
The idea of him being sacked this season, barring a full blown relegation battle, is ludicrous.
Yes he can obviously do better, but this squad would let down any manager. They lack commitment and quality.
We have improved under Ancelotti, albeit not as quickly as I'd have liked. We need to get back in form as quickly as possible because the current run is not good enough, but we are capable. And we have two home cup games to come in the next 5 weeks, which we need to target.
- Status
