Doesn't make sense to be against Brands tbh. Our best player this season was Godfrey and he was signed by the club, not Ancelotti.
Carlo Ancelotti | Real Madrid manager
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
The guy failed miserably with Bayern and Napoli before getting Everton job. The fact they he didn't find any better job than Everton to manage is an enough indication the guy is past it. He would have never accepted such job few years ago but he knows quite well no other big club will want him.
I mean yeah up till his CL win with Real Madrid he was a top coach. Everything after it has been trash. I don't know why people don't want to see it with him.
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There is a fair bit of over exaggeration here.
First, a lot of factors went into his Napoli stint. There were a lot of key players who had grown out of the club which had nothing to do with him - for example Mertens and Callejon were due to become free agents and didn't have contracts in place whilst Allan & Koulibaly were under impressions they'd be moving on.
Napoli was terribly managed not from Ancelotti but from De Laurentiis, who insisted on player bootcamps (which Ancelotti was against, by the way) and it caused a fair bit of a revolt in the dressing room. Despite all of this he finished 2nd in Serie A, 10 points clear of 3rd place Atalanta. He did not have a squad capable of taking on Juventus. He still had the team in a good position in the CL if memory serves too. If anything his Napoli experience points to him overcoming absolutely shit dictatorship above him and still making something work.
As for Bayern Munich he had a 70% win percentage in his time. He certainly could have done better with the talent at his disposal, even if he did win the league it's a minimum expectation. Whilst accepting he fell short at Bayern, that is in no way shape nor form a reason to think he's past it now.
Napoli didn't hire Carlo to finish 2nd. They were already 2nd with a 91 points tally and 4 points only away from the top the previous season under Sarri. They hired Carlo to try and take them for the next step forward considering his experience and winning mentality. At the end he got 79 points and finished 11 points away from the top. Next season he was sacked early in the season due to being 7th in the table. They now seem to be gradually recovering again under Gattuso. Overall, this was a failure of an appointment. Yes we can blame the board and all that we can also blame the United board for LVG and Mourinho failures for example, doesn't mean that they themselves didn't underperform.
As for Bayern, they again didn't hire him to win the league they were and are still winning without any competition. They hired him to push for one more CL and he failed. Their showing under him in CL was terrible, first season got eliminated from QF losing home and away to Madrid then next season he was sacked after losing to PSG 3-0 in the group. Also the players hated him and his training sessions, and by the end he lost the dressing room.
There's a huge reason why Carlo is now managing Everton out of all clubs. There's no top coach in his prime who would have accepted such job. Actually even at his prime he wouldn't have accepted the Napoli job. The guy had managed the best of the best in England, Spain and Italy before, but since his Bayern stent damaged his name so much, he had to step down and agree to manage Napoli, not an elite club, but at least still at top level of football. Then he failed again, and his reputation was damaged more, so he had to again step down and manage a worse team, Everton, a mid table club who don't qualify for any European competitions and have been finishing 7th and below.
Carlo would have never accepted such job in his prime. However he just knows that at the moment there's no big club that would want him so let's just take the offer available on the table instead of staying out of job.
This is clearly no different at all than Mourinho's down fall from Chelsea and United to Spurs then Roma. From top clubs up top to a club that will be fine with top 4-6 spot to currently the worst Serie A big team. His reputation was damaged so much from United and Chelsea failures he had to step down, then failed again then had to step down even more, all for the sake of not staying without a job. Carlo just followed the same pattern.
He finished 7th or 8th with Juventus in his first season I think in late 90s. Milan also finished outside top 4 a couple of times when they were cleaning up in CL.
We aren't blindly blaming the board in this case. You comparing it to our board is showing how little you seem to be aware of the situation. De Laurentiis got in the way of club training methods and meddled with the day-to-day of the squad, putting players who were considering moves into further low morale. That's not on Ancelotti, he was very much against the forced "ritiro" bootcamps. Besides, as good as Napoli's season under Sarri was in that isolated period, it was very much a red herring.
I'm not sure what you're trying to point to by "they didn't hire him for xyz" argument. They didn't hire pep to have Bayern's pants pulled down in one of their most humiliating knock out defeats ever, but hey ho, it happened. It's worth also remembering he took on a team that was used to a very nuanced style of play under Pep which invariably has teething problems. That's not to free him from criticism but to try and put underachieving Bayern tournaments at a precedent to what he achieved with Real (which wasn't that long ago at the time) is a bit silly.
Ancelotti took on a challenge. There were no top clubs with vacancies at the time so you can't depend on presumptuous logic so as to suggest he snubbed from top clubs. Ultimately the man has won the CL 3 times, he's won titles in Paris, Germany, Spain, England and Italy and that shit doesn't get forgotten because he got 70% (and not 75%) win rates at Bayern, and had a bad stint in the CL. The goodwill doesn't disappear that easily, especially considering his time with Real prior is seen as a success, his time at Chelsea prior to that remembered fondly too, and so on.
The Napoli argument is just a non starter - you can revisit the events yourself but the players themselves had a mutiny against the owner during the campaign which basically made Ancelotti needing to perform with whatever morale he had. To put the blame on him is just silly.
It's not theres no big club that would want him, it's that there was no challenge open to him at the time.
He's a manager that took AC Milan to ridiculous heights, that won titles in pretty much every major European League and has worn the CL t-shirt 3 times. Has it not occurred to you that he chose Everton because Farhad Moshiri offered him a new challenge that he wanted to take on, rather than him being over the hill?
This is just daft, he's nothing like Mourinho, even by way of career trajectory.
Gattuso also doesn't seem like to have much problem with current Napoli and its board. He won a cup there and had mostly a pretty decent season, missing top 4 in last week after Carlo had left them in 7th before being sacked the previous season.
You are giving example for Pep's Bayern? Pretty sure everyone considered Pep not winning CL and failing in semis repeatedly with Bayern to be a big black spot in his career there. Even the guy talked several times he had no problem with people considering him to fail at Bayern because of the no CL trophy.
If a club hire a manager for a target and he failed in it you can't go on and say "hey he still actually won the league they win pretty much every season and are still winning it now". No one will consider a Bayern coach currently successful just because he won the league. You also kinda ignored the fact he had a terrible relationship with players who hated his training sessions, as hinted by Lewa and Robben, even though you blamed Napoli's board for his failures?
There is no top manager who is going to take a challenge with a midtable club if they know they will get a top club soon, this is just lame, I don't even know how you believe it. If Pep left City now he won't go on and manage Spurs because they offer a challenge and no other big club has vacant. He will take a break knowing fully well many big clubs will move heaven and earth to get him. Carlo jumped into Everton job because he knew that waiting is pointless. No big club in the same level of Madrid or Bayern will want him.
I don't know why you are posting his past achievements. You realize that no one is saying he's an overall shit coach, right? Carlo is one of the best coaches in modern game. He's just currently a washed out manager managing a midtable club after repetitive failures. It happens. Not every manager stays at the top game till he retires like SAF. A lot of the top coaches have their last few years in management being shit. Ultimately football moves on from their tactics and a set of new managers with modern, new ideas of football and tactics and arise, and a lot of these managers fail to adapt. Carlo is just another example. He was an elite but ultimately he's not good anymore. His tactics are outdated and his football has become shit.
Actually, yeah his trajectory is pretty similar with Mourinho. Both are old elites who failed to adapt and now play shit football, underperforme regularly, and had to keep on stepping down to manage worse teams because no big club want them anymore. The only difference is Carlo doesn't act like a twat in pressers or get into problems with his players. He's a likeable guy so he gets a free pass and this is just the weird issue for me. The guy does seem like the only washed out manager there who has the standards set pretty low for him that people don't want to say he's doing a terrible job even when he does, just because he's likeable and not a cnut like Mourinho. In reality both have been shit for years.
He finished last season 12th with Everton and after a good market and a promising start to the season he went on and finished 10th again playing garbage football on the run, even though this is a season in which Spurs and Arsenal were garbage. He failed to secure even a EL qualification which David fecking Moyes with WHU managed but people are actually considered him to be doing a good job at Everton. He doesn't even play good football there to start with.
The guy is one of the elites but he's not good anymore that's all in it. If this isn't him past it, I would like to know what "past it" means.
He's been sacked
Whelp. OK sorry for that.
Il reply to your post properly later, but pointing to Gatusso as a barometer of success for Napoli probably sums up your general argument on Ancelotti.Whelp. OK sorry for that.
I didn't. The barometer for Napoli's success is Sarri but you considered it a red herring already? Even though Carlo performed worse than him. I just said Gattuso improved the team after Carlo was sacked, that's all.
My general argument on Carlo is he's one of the old elites but he's currently past it and people don't want to admit it. If you think that the current Carlo who is managing Everton is the same manager who won CLs with Milan then...yeah, there's nothing more to be said.
Carlo didn't "leave them", he was abruptly sacked by a trigger happy manager (who has just gone trigger happy again on Gattuso). Again, Carlo's Napoli stint is hugely distorted by the bellend decisions - I'm not revisiting this as the point has been made many times now.
He was brought in to win everything at Bayern, and he failed that target. No one is going to think Pep was a failure at Bayern though. As much as Ancelloti under delivered in Europe he still had the best points per game only after Pep. Trying to point to Bayern as though that was why he was suddenly washed up is massively overcooked. You need to implode with serious embarrassment to be considered washed up, not have a blip in half a season - something even the best of managers go through (Pep and Klopp both this season, as examples).
You're mixing Napoli with Bayern here. No one complained about Ancelotti at Napoli and he's generally very well liked despite having handled countless big stars. His ability to unify a dressing room was one pivotal factor behind the Real Madrid success. I mean, even Zlatan was fecked off by Pep, that doesn't make him a poor manager with outdated training sessions.
I don't know how many different ways to explain to you, that for managers that have won everything there is to win, managing contingent big clubs in each country, it's likely they would be open to bigger challenges, such as taking Everton to the next level provided they have backing. Saying "no big club will want him" is just presumptuous.
You've said he's washed up which is pretty much as bad as calling him a shit coach. He's not washed up or shit, this is such a kneejerk reaction to a well respected manager who has done broadly quite well in every tenure he's had. He's going out of his comfort zone to build something from ground up, which is more than what the likes of Pep would dare to do.
It's nothing like Mourinho. When Ancelotti spunks hundreds of millions and can't muster a title challenge, feel free to reach out and suggest this.
Yeh, he's had a shite season, but as already said - he has so much goodwill over the course of his career that it's not disappearing from just this showing with Everton.
Eh, I'm sorry but it seems like your only problem is that I called him a washed up manager and you think that this equals calling him a shit coach? I don't even know how both correlate. Calling him a shit coach means that he's shit in general. Calling him a washed up manager means that he's currently not good enough anymore to manage at top level as he used to be. Both are completely different. It's honestly quite ridiculous to say both are the same. So if I say that Bastian was a washed up player when he played United in 2016 coming from Bayern, it equals me calling him a shit player in general. Ridiculous way of thinking really. You seem to struggle with the idea that managers get past their prime and fail to adapt all the time. It has nothing to do with their past career. Carlo is a well respected coach. He is one of the best managers in modern history but he's also currently a past it manager.
As for the challenge, any top manager would prefer to stay in the top game and win trophies consistently with big clubs than to "challenge" themselves with a midtable job that its chances of failure is bigger than success because they have already won everything. Pep has won pretty much every single thing in world in the top 3 countries in world football, do you expect him to go manage Everton or Lazio next to challenge himself with transforming them into an elite since he has nothing else to win ?
The problem with Carlo isn't just that "challenge" aspect you are claiming. Let's say it's true. Let's say he can manage any big club now but got Everton to challenge himself. He's now failing in such "challenge" anyway. He hasn't taken Everton any step forward and the results and league positions he's getting is what any other no name manager would have also got. They also play terrible football for the majority of time, so even this "challenge" he has been terrible at it.
You need to realize that managers get past it eventually. It has feck all to do with their past history. Football is a pretty dynamic sport and tactics improve every few years. New managers come on with new tactics and modernized ideas to revolutionize the sport and a lot of old managers failed to adapt. Carlo's tactics and football don't seem to work for him anymore.
Just ask yourself with how much you are defending him if you will like to have him as a United manager next season or not.
Yeah a lot of overreaction here, I mean he is managing Everton, not United, Liverpool, City or Chelsea.
He was also the first manager to win 3 CLs not that long ago, so can’t be that bad.
But I do believe he is not a top manager anymore, just like LvG was past his best when he joined United and just like Mourinho was past his best during his 2nd Chelsea stint.
He was also the first manager to win 3 CLs not that long ago, so can’t be that bad.
But I do believe he is not a top manager anymore, just like LvG was past his best when he joined United and just like Mourinho was past his best during his 2nd Chelsea stint.
Ole himself admitted he was a manager in that man-manager mound. So those types have not completely disappeared.
I don't think Ancelotti is past it. His problem is that his floor is lower than that of other top managers. This has meant getting fired from jobs fairly quickly, and since there's a finite number of top jobs available, you end up in situations that aren't so favorable, like managing Everton.
He hasn't had a management stint longer than two years in over a decade, even while he was winning league titles and CLs.
He hasn't had a management stint longer than two years in over a decade, even while he was winning league titles and CLs.
Those types aren't really winning the top trophies either.
Simeone arguably fit into the "man-manager" category, and he's just won the La Liga. Ole may win his first trophy this week as well.
We need to sign better quality players. We have players at the club picking up a fortune who have contributed and offer absolutely nothing.
We're still paying Walcott £150k a week, Bolasie 75k, Bernard 120k, Sigurdsson was not a good buy, Gomes was limited before his injury and is finished now after Son done him in.
Besic has made 30 appearances and has been there under 8 different managers (caretaker managers included). Being paid a fortune to basically use the clubs gym.
Iwobi is rubbish and many would be happy to see him sold for half his price.
The squad is the result of many poor buys from the last 3-4 managers.
There is no attacking pace or width in the team. Most of the attacking outlet comes from Digne and Coleman (who also needs replaced) which doesnt take much for other teams to shut down.
Ancelotti got us good results away from home when we could be on the defensive. If our home form had've matched our away form we would have been top 4.
When we tried to play attacking football at home the players couldnt string 2 passes together and couldnt show up. The manager does share some blame but i wouldnt be disappointed to see most of the squad go.
Even Richarlison was quite poor last season. There was talk that he was giving us one more season and then might go. Im past caring tbh. His contribution was poor for his standards.
We're still paying Walcott £150k a week, Bolasie 75k, Bernard 120k, Sigurdsson was not a good buy, Gomes was limited before his injury and is finished now after Son done him in.
Besic has made 30 appearances and has been there under 8 different managers (caretaker managers included). Being paid a fortune to basically use the clubs gym.
Iwobi is rubbish and many would be happy to see him sold for half his price.
The squad is the result of many poor buys from the last 3-4 managers.
There is no attacking pace or width in the team. Most of the attacking outlet comes from Digne and Coleman (who also needs replaced) which doesnt take much for other teams to shut down.
Ancelotti got us good results away from home when we could be on the defensive. If our home form had've matched our away form we would have been top 4.
When we tried to play attacking football at home the players couldnt string 2 passes together and couldnt show up. The manager does share some blame but i wouldnt be disappointed to see most of the squad go.
Even Richarlison was quite poor last season. There was talk that he was giving us one more season and then might go. Im past caring tbh. His contribution was poor for his standards.
Everton are in a situation where they need a clear out, the buys that went wrong need to be cleared.
The likes of Sigurdson, Bernard, Iwobi all need to leave the club.
They made good signings last summer, if they continue in that mould, they will improve. They do need some creative wingers this summer.
The likes of Sigurdson, Bernard, Iwobi all need to leave the club.
They made good signings last summer, if they continue in that mould, they will improve. They do need some creative wingers this summer.
Never rated him to be honest. Excellent CL manager, mediocre league manager.
I also think the shine is taken off a CL win when the team underperforms in the league the same season.
The Juve and Milan teams he managed were phenomenal and he could only muster 1 league title in ten years.
I also think the shine is taken off a CL win when the team underperforms in the league the same season.
The Juve and Milan teams he managed were phenomenal and he could only muster 1 league title in ten years.
Nope. Ole didn't win that trophy. And Simone is more tactical than he appears.
Didn't he just make his move to Southampton permanent ? Or is it another loan ?
You sign players from Barcelona (Digne, Gomes and Mina) and those first two were pretty good although Gomes been poor since the leg break. Rodriguez came from Real Madrid and Allan one of best DMs in Serie A at Napoli.
When they're all fit that's half your outfield 11 so I wouldn't say it's that bad unless you're expecting a Man. City strong squad which simply isn't realistic for where Everton are so they'll always be mediocre squad players as back up but clubs that have finished above you in the league have many of those aswell e.g. Spurs and Arsenal.
Everton'sjust got a weird mentality complex at business end of the season so I'd say it's a big worry if a proven winner like Ancelotti can't solve it as this season was a huge chance to finish top 6 and fell way short in the end.
Walcott's contract at Everton ending next month. He's signing permanent for Southampton then.
He has failed at every club so far and gets rewarded with yet another (probably) lucrative contract.
Once you have made it to the top, you fall very cosily - that's "professional" football for you.
Once you have made it to the top, you fall very cosily - that's "professional" football for you.
Talk tonight that ancelotti maybe going back to real madrid.
Ancelotti is much worse than Zidane at some of the things the club claims they require from a manager (playing the random toddlers they buy daily) so it would be a real bad appointment.
I doubt Ancelotti would accept it if it were true.
I doubt Ancelotti would accept it if it were true.
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Blessing in disguise for Everton.
Ancelotti is past his best, and when did he rebuild teams anyway?
This isnt going to end well.
This isnt going to end well.
Well I have to say I thought his career at top clubs was finished. He's not as good as he was when he went to Real first time and Real are not as good as they were back then.
This may be good thing for Everton, they have some good players, bring in good manager and they may improve next season.
Howe to Everton?
Well I did not see that one coming. I can't see it going as well as it did last time, but I like Carlo, so who knows. Wish him all the best.
Good move for Everton (if it happens). Real are signing past-it managers while Barca are signing past-it players. What a weird period for both of them. Though, still wouldn't discount Ancelotti turning it on in the CL.
I’d rather he left later on and we got Potter in a few seasons.
I agree - expensive contract with high expectations with little to show for it.
I didn't reply to this because we will just get in a circular debate.
But I recall one of your premise for calling Carlo "washed up" is that no top club will consider him now. I find that highly presumptuous and pretty false, worth highlighting the below:
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Weird from Real, weird from him if he goes back there.
Everton would be better off with a younger hungrier manager anyway. He's been a disappointment in truth, even if he's been able to help attract some good players.
Everton would be better off with a younger hungrier manager anyway. He's been a disappointment in truth, even if he's been able to help attract some good players.
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Never that I can think of. He's sort of like an up market Sam Allardyce, bring him in to do a job and he'll turn things around and have relative success for a year or two but then things peter out.