2020/21 Carlo Ancelotti

[Carlito]

The point I make with Arsenal, is if Ancelotti had gone there, and Arteta had gone here, where would both be.I think they would be in the hunt for 2nd, and we would probaby be in the bottom half of the league.

We'd have had some phenomenal 20-minute periods of fizzing the ball around, though.

I do actually think that Arteta will turn out to be the real deal (he had some great wins on the way to lifting the FA Cup), but Arsenal must occasionally wonder if they threw away a quick return to the Champions League when they chose him over Ancelotti.

 

[Brisan123]

West Ham top 4...Spurs, Arsenal midtable?

Arsenal were a mess before an inexperienced Arteta took over ,so no surprise there
Spurs will not spend money and Jose ( with the exception of Porto) always had money to spend
Spam are having a Leicester moment under Moyes who is a decent manager but with a built in psychological ceiling
Leicester are seeing the benefits of having a stable set up but injuries could derail them

 

[catcherintherye]

We'd have had some phenomenal 20-minute periods of fizzing the ball around, though.

I do actually think that Arteta will turn out to be the real deal (he had some great wins on the way to lifting the FA Cup), but Arsenal must occasionally wonder if they threw away a quick return to the Champions League when they chose him over Ancelotti.

He has every chance, and for a 38 year old manager in his first job he's done ok, some good and bad bits.

The issue is, at Arsenal he has a bit of a buffer available. Whereas here the margin for error is very tight, but the expectations remain very high. I think it would have gone very wrong here and I'm not sure people would have given him 2-3 years to learn on the job to ever come out the other side.

 

[bicycleheader]

Assembled by an idiot, adapted by a genius.

will this be the tag line for the season review after we finished 3rd and win the cup?

 

[Lanolin]

We have some very very good players, but also some bad ones. There shouldn’t be a world where James Rodriguez trains with Jonjoe Kenny but that was Everton before the January window.

I actually think January did us a favour squad wise getting a good bit more of the deadwood out.

I’m not suddenly going to pretend that Coleman Davies Siggurdson Iwobi are brilliant players now because they’re not. They’re being maximised to their best form by a very good manager.

I think we’ve got an excellent core now of Godfrey Holgate Keane Mina Digne Docuoure Allan James Richarlison DCL to build on, it’s a lot better than it has been recently. Some other squads though have 15-20 players they might consider at that level though.

Other than the very, very best in the world, that happens at literally every single club. Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba train every day with Brandon Williams and Axel Tuanzebe, it's totally normal. I don't know why people always try to make out like we've got a relegation standard squad or our situation is completely different to everyone elses. Finishing top 4 would be an amazing achievement with this squad, top 6 a good one, top 8 par. We're currently 7th. The opportunity is there for this to be a great season, Ancelotti deserves a lot of credit already and if we actually achieve something he should be lauded until the cows come home, but I do find it hard to get on board with the idea that we're hugely overachieving right at this moment.

 

[Brisan123]

Just checked and we can only go 4th with a win against WBA if Liverpool and Chelsea draw

We will be fourth for 2 hours or thereabouts if we win
Chelsea play the scum after our game has finished

 

[Gilbert..]

I keep reading people say hes doing marvelously with this squad.

Im taking nothing away from Carlo here, but the squad isn't as bad as people make out, sure it lacks depth in some areas, but we have some very, very, very good players.

Top 4 would be overachieving of course, but can we stop pretending we have Brighton players please.

The lack of depth is everything though. We've gone into home games recently with four central midfielders strung across the centre. Dont underestimate how much that affects us getting teams turning towards their own goal at home. The options wide are so ineffective ancelotti doesnt even start them.
Dont think the squads that great. Its top heavy with midfielders who are very much alike and zero guile wide.
What would be boss is if all the central midfielders were fighting it out for two spots and we got some genuine pace wide.
Cant go into next season not putting teams on the back foot at Goodison.

 

[Brisan123]

The lack of depth is everything though. We've gone into home games recently with four central midfielders strung across the centre. Dont underestimate how much that affects us getting teams turning towards their own goal at home. The options wide are so ineffective ancelotti doesnt even start them.
Dont think the squads that great. Its top heavy with midfielders who are very much alike and zero guile wide.
What would be boss is if all the central midfielders were fighting it out for two spots and we got some genuine pace wide.
Cant go into next season not putting teams on the back foot at Goodison.

A proper chalk on the boots LW and RW who can play either side would totally transform this side
Add an attacking RB and we could go places
To my mind Ricarlison is a CF and a better natural finisher than DCL
Its also his preferred position as its where he will get game time with Brazil

 

[Efcjake]

I keep reading people say hes doing marvelously with this squad.

Im taking nothing away from Carlo here, but the squad isn't as bad as people make out, sure it lacks depth in some areas, but we have some very, very, very good players.

Top 4 would be overachieving of course, but can we stop pretending we have Brighton players please.

The first team is very, very good.

The squad players we have to rely on if any of them get injured are not very good.

With all the injuries we have had Carlo has done very well to get us where we are. He's done that in spite of the squad available to him, not because of it.

He deserves every bit of credit for getting a tune out of Iwobi, Sigurdsson, Gomes, and Davies after what we saw from them last year.

There's no way we come close to where we are now without all 4 signings this summer hitting the ground running and walking into our team. Adding 4 first team players improved the squad by virtue of us not having to start most of the above each week.

 

[Gilbert..]

A proper chalk on the boots LW and RW who can play either side would totally transform this side
Add an attacking RB and we could go places

100%. Balance the team out. With hopefully a bit of quality. Saw a clip the other day of digne feeding calvert lewin this season. Now throw in wide players taking on fullbacks doing the same. Esp at Goodison. Be like xmas and birthday for him feeding on that.
Very important window in the summer. Gotta get the recruitment right. It could take off if we do.

 

[riddick]

He's a great manager. I just quetion what he's communicating there.

It is allowed. He isn't infallible.

If Carlo was infallible then we wouldn't have gotten dominated, twice, by Newcastle. It's absolutely peculiar to me how some teams just show up and have probably the easiest match they have all year whenever they play us. Fulham did it for 3 halfs ffs.

I seriously wish we got even 1 point from either of those Newcastle matches (or even Leeds ffs 90th minute BS). Some of the matches this year have been absolutely awful awful football. Yesterday was not the best viewing either but we won. Genuinely don't recall us really playing all that well apart from the first X matches until Liverpool first go around. But it sometimes it gets results, sometimes it absolutely doesn't. Yesterday got us the win and 3 points. I can't say "that's all that matters" because it isn't. It's the main thing tho.

 

[Toffeelover]

We will be fourth for 2 hours or thereabouts if we win
Chelsea play the scum after our game has finished

No if Chelsea and RS draw we will stay 4th on 46 points.

 

[davek]

will this be the tag line for the season review after we finished 3rd and win the cup?

If it's used in 10 years time to describe Everton's title winning team of 2021/22 I want recognition for it.

 

[Zatara]

The lack of depth is everything though. We've gone into home games recently with four central midfielders strung across the centre. Dont underestimate how much that affects us getting teams turning towards their own goal at home. The options wide are so ineffective ancelotti doesnt even start them.
Dont think the squads that great. Its top heavy with midfielders who are very much alike and zero guile wide.
What would be boss is if all the central midfielders were fighting it out for two spots and we got some genuine pace wide.
Cant go into next season not putting teams on the back foot at Goodison.

A proper chalk on the boots LW and RW who can play either side would totally transform this side
Add an attacking RB and we could go places
To my mind Ricarlison is a CF and a better natural finisher than DCL
Its also his preferred position as its where he will get game time with Brazil

If we went for a 442 for example then the wide players would need to be signed...we would need 2 starters + the right back.

Wingers cost big money which is one way to go.

The other is the 442 diamond or 352 where we would still need the right back but also a central midfielder and centre back to rotate.

These two formations which rely on wing backs for width would probably enable us to sign better a quality player...

E.g if we had £100mil - Aarons for 35mil = £65mil.

With that £65mil we could sign a centre back to rotate for £10mil then have £55mil for a super central midfielder.

Alternatively the £65mil could be split between two wingers.

Id not be opposed to either especially with the current opportunities in the market + money from sales to be added.

 

[JLW]