Carlo Ancelotti

[Zoo 2.0 1,349]

32 minutes ago, Romey 1878 said:

 not offended like, more just thinking it’s an unfair label 😛

Why so negative?

[StevO 5,920]

4 hours ago, Bailey said:

Were the tactics actually that good?

We had three meaningful attempts in open play in the game against a side that played most of the game against two distinctly average centre backs and no genuine holding midfielders. On the whole, we were unable to hold any sort of meaningful possession or generate regular counter attacking opportunities. The thing that we did do in this game and have done under Ancellotti is convert those chances.

Whilst we did restrict them to very few chances, they still had enough to win the game on another day. My view, is that if we play that way 100 times, we will lose more than we win.

Don't get me wrong, I am ecstatic that we finally got one over on them but looking forward, I hope and expect a lot better than that.

Miserable bastard 😂

[StevO 5,920]

58 minutes ago, Romey 1878 said:

This actually annoys me a bit because when it’s good I literally bounce off the walls. When we won our first 7 games this season I probably enjoyed it and played it up more than anyone on here!

I just get seriously pissed off when it’s shit as well.

When you’re happy you let it out into the real world. When you’re not you let it out on TT. 😂

[Romey 1878 14,133]

38 minutes ago, Zoo 2.0 said:

Why so negative?

The Joker does not appreciate you messing with his iconic line. 

[Matt 8,278]

1 hour ago, Romey 1878 said:

 not offended like, more just thinking it’s an unfair label 😛

You complaining again?

[Romey 1878 14,133]

50 minutes ago, Matt said:

You complaining again?

Looks like it and I’m not fucking sorry. 

[Matt 8,278]

2 hours ago, Romey 1878 said:

Looks like it and I’m not fucking sorry. 

[FairWooney 147]

I can see where @Bailey is coming from, there were periods where we were relying on our defenders to put in challenges in and around the box to stop them teeing something up.  The defense handled them brilliantly but they were getting very close and the Liverpool side with the confidence and fluency of last season would have probably managed to get one through.

That said we have done similar in other big games this season and come away with points and right now that is the how best for us to play against those teams.

I'd love to see us going toe to to toe with the top teams and looking every bit as good as them and able to attack them and look like the better team but right now I think Carlo has us set up well to play to our strengths and come away with points in games where we're not the favourite.

I'd say in the second half we could definitely have been going for the kill a bit more and too often resorted to punting it away and not pushing out when had we had a bit more composure we could have have troubled their centre backs more.  I'll accept though that the players were probably feeling the pressure of the game situation and not taking chances, being more cautious than they would otherwise be.  That's not Carlo's decision though and I saw him on camera at one point urging them to get out.

I don't think we have any tactical problems in these games, it's the games where we are expected to win that he needs to master

[Bailey 5,090]

 

23 hours ago, RuffRob said:

I don't agree with that at all - Liverpool had the lions share of possession, but that was about it (and we where set up to allow that). The did very little to hurt us - Pickford made a couple of decent saves - but I think had he not made the saves their would be plenty on his case. It was nothing like the Man City game where they actually did simply run us in to the ground.

Liverpool only really had a decent spell at the beginning of the second half. 

I think tactically Ancelotti got it spot on - if we had played more open in an effort to get at their centre backs more we would have been more likely to concede. Simple as that. We were also 0 -1 up very early, so was far more important to keep it tight than get a second goal. We may have go at them a little more had it been 0-0, will never know. 

But at 0-1 throughout much of the game it was just as likely to be 0-2 as 1-1.   So away to the Champions, tactics seemed OK to me. 

Over night we are not going to go from a mid table team to a team who will come out and dominate play against Liverpool or the likes. 

We are now getting to many positive results playing this way against top 6 teams for it to be a bit of luck.

We just now need to now get on top of getting results in game in which we dominate possession. 

See the difference between the City game and the Liverpool game was that extra bit of quality. Firminho had two shots on the edge of the box and he missed the target completely. Mane had two free headers that he got caught just underneath them. If you give good players chances like that eventually they will go in. They might not have been peppering the goal, but they were a moment away too often for my liking.

I agree about how the game might have developed differently, but going for it hasn't really happened for us for a long time. There would never have been a moment in that game that we would have dominated in the way Liverpool did for example.

If you look at chances against we played like Burnley. There is no comparison to the players we have and the budget we have to bring players in. We very rarely dominate a game. On pure possession stats, we have only been above 50% in three games since December (Burnley, West Ham, Sheffield).

5 hours ago, FairWooney said:

I can see where @Bailey is coming from, there were periods where we were relying on our defenders to put in challenges in and around the box to stop them teeing something up.  The defense handled them brilliantly but they were getting very close and the Liverpool side with the confidence and fluency of last season would have probably managed to get one through.

That said we have done similar in other big games this season and come away with points and right now that is the how best for us to play against those teams.

I'd love to see us going toe to to toe with the top teams and looking every bit as good as them and able to attack them and look like the better team but right now I think Carlo has us set up well to play to our strengths and come away with points in games where we're not the favourite.

I'd say in the second half we could definitely have been going for the kill a bit more and too often resorted to punting it away and not pushing out when had we had a bit more composure we could have have troubled their centre backs more.  I'll accept though that the players were probably feeling the pressure of the game situation and not taking chances, being more cautious than they would otherwise be.  That's not Carlo's decision though and I saw him on camera at one point urging them to get out.

I don't think we have any tactical problems in these games, it's the games where we are expected to win that he needs to master

I do think that this season particularly that there is a reasonable reason to play slightly more defensive football like we have. There are lots of games in a short space of time and there have been lots of injuries across the board. If you can't dominate like City then the next energy conserving way to play is to sit deep. It is also the best way to support weaker players in the starting line-up. That is all well and good as long as you can still counter attack effectively and hold possession at moment to take the pressure off. We don't do either of those things well enough at the moment.

If we do want to turn into a good side that competes properly, we will need to play much further up the pitch and meet teams in the middle third, rather than on the edge of our box. You only have to look at the decline of Mourinho and Spurs to show that this way of playing has a shelf life in modern football. You say that it is the games we are expected to win that we need to master, but we struggle in those games as well because unless they come on to us, we don't know what to do because we are too used to being the mouse and not the cat.

As for the rest of you, I prefer realist to miserable

[RuffRob 671]

46 minutes ago, Bailey said:

 

See the difference between the City game and the Liverpool game was that extra bit of quality. Firminho had two shots on the edge of the box and he missed the target completely. Mane had two free headers that he got caught just underneath them. If you give good players chances like that eventually they will go in. They might not have been peppering the goal, but they were a moment away too often for my liking.

I agree about how the game might have developed differently, but going for it hasn't really happened for us for a long time. There would never have been a moment in that game that we would have dominated in the way Liverpool did for example.

If you look at chances against we played like Burnley. There is no comparison to the players we have and the budget we have to bring players in. We very rarely dominate a game. On pure possession stats, we have only been above 50% in three games since December (Burnley, West Ham, Sheffield).

I do think that this season particularly that there is a reasonable reason to play slightly more defensive football like we have. There are lots of games in a short space of time and there have been lots of injuries across the board. If you can't dominate like City then the next energy conserving way to play is to sit deep. It is also the best way to support weaker players in the starting line-up. That is all well and good as long as you can still counter attack effectively and hold possession at moment to take the pressure off. We don't do either of those things well enough at the moment.

If we do want to turn into a good side that competes properly, we will need to play much further up the pitch and meet teams in the middle third, rather than on the edge of our box. You only have to look at the decline of Mourinho and Spurs to show that this way of playing has a shelf life in modern football. You say that it is the games we are expected to win that we need to master, but we struggle in those games as well because unless they come on to us, we don't know what to do because we are too used to being the mouse and not the cat.

As for the rest of you, I prefer realist to miserable

Thing is @Bailey you opening line on your post was 'where his tactic that good though' ? And mine and pretty much everybody's else's answer was 'yes'. 

I don't think anybody will argue that in the longer term more possession and playing higher up the pitch is what will make you a team that is consistently for challenging a top 4 position.  However, first of all you have to be at least as good if not better at playing this way than the teams you are doing it against - because if you are not, most of the time you are going to get beaten playing them at there own game - we would just be opening ourselves up.

We are not a team or squad that is yet good enough to go toe to toe like this - with a bit of luck we will get there in the next couple of seasons, but doing this is the very hardest part - as we already have the likes of Man City, Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spur and Arsenal (even Leicester) that are already there or there about's (although a bit of ebb and flow with a couple of these teams) - but they are also always looking to improve. I my eyes if you want to be regular Top 4 Premiership team that pretty much means you have to be one of the Top 10 - 12 teams in Europe. 

 

Ancelotti's tactic's where spot on as we played the best way to suited the players we have and optimise what we do well in order get the best possible result - You can't argue with a deserved 0-2 at Anfield 

Will Ancelotti want to play this way during the rest of time he is at Everton, probably not. I am sure he will be looking to bring in more players that will allow us to progress in to a more possession based side.  

Rome want built in a day.

[SpartyBlue 351]

55 minutes ago, RuffRob said:

Thing is @Bailey you opening line on your post was 'where his tactic that good though' ? And mine and pretty much everybody's else's answer was 'yes'. 

I don't think anybody will argue that in the longer term more possession and playing higher up the pitch is what will make you a team that is consistently for challenging a top 4 position.  However, first of all you have to be at least as good if not better at playing this way than the teams you are doing it against - because if you are not, most of the time you are going to get beaten playing them at there own game - we would just be opening ourselves up.

We are not a team or squad that is yet good enough to go toe to toe like this - with a bit of luck we will get there in the next couple of seasons, but doing this is the very hardest part - as we already have the likes of Man City, Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spur and Arsenal (even Leicester) that are already there or there about's (although a bit of ebb and flow with a couple of these teams) - but they are also always looking to improve. I my eyes if you want to be regular Top 4 Premiership team that pretty much means you have to be one of the Top 10 - 12 teams in Europe. 

 

Ancelotti's tactic's where spot on as we played the best way to suited the players we have and optimise what we do well in order get the best possible result - You can't argue with a deserved 0-2 at Anfield 

Will Ancelotti want to play this way during the rest of time he is at Everton, probably not. I am sure he will be looking to bring in more players that will allow us to progress in to a more possession based side.  

Rome want built in a day.

Great post. Ancelotti’s greatest strength thus far seems to be to be able to set up tactically and with personnel that allows us a chance against clubs who will control possession and who are objectively more talented. 
 

The obvious concern is our performance against sides who are farther down the table. I’m not sure if our poor results there are down to his decisions or is it just that our team currently sets up best to play in the way we have to against Liverpool, City, Chelsea etc..?

[duncanmckenzieismagic 5,448]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/25/carlo-ancelotti-keen-to-extend-contract-and-lead-everton-into-new-stadium

[Gwlad all over 649]

Success in the next 3 or 4 years and we can have an Ancelotti stand.

[London Blue 2,422]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/56216908

 

More on football focus on BBC 1 tomorrow. 

[AlbanyNYToffee 457]

If Carlo is still here when Bramley Moore opens we'll be playing under the lights on Tuesdays/Wednesdays as well. 

[Bailey 5,090]

On 24/02/2021 at 16:17, RuffRob said:

Thing is @Bailey you opening line on your post was 'where his tactic that good though' ? And mine and pretty much everybody's else's answer was 'yes'. 

I don't think anybody will argue that in the longer term more possession and playing higher up the pitch is what will make you a team that is consistently for challenging a top 4 position.  However, first of all you have to be at least as good if not better at playing this way than the teams you are doing it against - because if you are not, most of the time you are going to get beaten playing them at there own game - we would just be opening ourselves up.

We are not a team or squad that is yet good enough to go toe to toe like this - with a bit of luck we will get there in the next couple of seasons, but doing this is the very hardest part - as we already have the likes of Man City, Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spur and Arsenal (even Leicester) that are already there or there about's (although a bit of ebb and flow with a couple of these teams) - but they are also always looking to improve. I my eyes if you want to be regular Top 4 Premiership team that pretty much means you have to be one of the Top 10 - 12 teams in Europe. 

 

Ancelotti's tactic's where spot on as we played the best way to suited the players we have and optimise what we do well in order get the best possible result - You can't argue with a deserved 0-2 at Anfield 

Will Ancelotti want to play this way during the rest of time he is at Everton, probably not. I am sure he will be looking to bring in more players that will allow us to progress in to a more possession based side.  

Rome want built in a day.

I do agree with a lot of what you have said. I also completely accept that this is by no means the finished article. I also accept the tactics employed were completely reasonable in the circumstances. 

My view is that they weren't anything special to be raving about. It was Moyes/Dyche-esque. There is nothing wrong with that, but it isn't anything to go overboard about. 

Anyway whilst we may not agree about that game, it does look like we agree that more is needed in the future.