Carlo Ancelotti was not out of a job for long when Everton snapped him up. He has breathed new life into the side that ended his Chelsea tenure.
Carlo Ancelotti was sacked in the tunnel at Goodison Park for only coming second in the Premier League and having failed to win the Champions League despite having Chelsea’s greatest season just a year before. Now, in a twist of poetic irony, he is back at Goodison as the Everton manager.
That may seem like a strange down turn, but for Ancelotti it just seems like another challenge. Marco Silva had failed to get the squad going this season and Ancelotti, only just sacked by Napoli, decided to take the call. Everton has only gone from strength to strength sense.
On some level, Frank Lampard will be excited to test himself against the manager he arguably took the most from tactically. Ancelotti will pull no punches however. Everton has gotten miles better since the Italian took over and Chelsea will be up for a challenge with whoever is fit to play.
Ancelotti is the type of manager who will adjust the shape to get all the best players on the field, but he does oftentimes return to a lopsided 4-4-2. One winger may be an attacking midfielder, one striker may actually be a winger. It makes sense when seen from the bird’s eye view and is basically just a more extreme version of what every other manager does when they focus the attack down one side or the other.
Offensively, Ancelotti likes his side to make their own decisions but he does tend to guide them in particular directions. The wingers will often tuck in behind the strikers, opening up space for the full backs to overlap. They will then one two their way up a flank before sending something towards the box. The faster they can do it, the better they are at it.
Defensively, they will collapse into the 4-4-2 with the true striker pressing directly at the ball and the winger/striker or attacking midfielder/striker will try to cut off the passing lane into the wide areas. The wingers will tuck in to try to tempt that wide ball so the attacking player or one of the full backs can press and win it back.
Their biggest strength is the usual one for an Ancelotti team: they are unpredictable. Because Ancelotti allows his sides to make their own decisions, they often have few patterns of play that can be discerned by the opponent. Furthermore, because the player in certain positions does not necessarily play that position, there is a lot of second guessing as to which role the opponent will actually play on in given possession.
But that can also be their weakness in a way. Because the team is so fluid, there are often large gaps left behind that can be exploited. If Chelsea wants an easy way into the final third, the center backs only need to invite pressure before launching it into Olivier Giroud dropping into a hole in midfield.
This will not be a straight forward match by any means. In the 11 games since Ancelotti has been in charge, Everton has gone from nearing a relegation scrap to the midst of a battle for Europa. They score plenty of goals but concede just as many. Chelsea can use that opening if they can overcome their own propensity to do the same as well as their injuries.