No long holidays for Everton players, says Ancelotti

It appears just like the Everton fans, the manager is pretty impatient about getting his squad back together and try to wipe off the stain of a memory last season was.

The inconsistent Toffees picked up a total of 30 points in the 20 games under Carlo Ancelotti and still only ended up 12th, which would still be considered an improvement considering they had fallen as low as 18th during the nadir of Marco Silva’s tenure.

In some canned statements to the Everton website, the veteran Italian manager indicated that he had only advocated for a short break for his players as he wanted to get back to business as soon as he could with the 2020-21 season scheduled to commence on the week of September 12th.

“I think that it will not be a long holiday [for the players], it can be two or three weeks.

“It will be important for them to have a break and spend time with their families.

“We don’t have a long time to prepare for the new season but I think when the season starts we will be ready.

“For me, honestly, I am in a place [Crosby] where people usually go on holiday!

“The beach is fantastic and so maybe I will decide to stay in Crosby for a holiday!”

For long stretches of this season, and especially after the resumption from the COVID interruption, a number of Everton players looked tired. To be fair, that seemed a common malaise across the sport, but in a system like Ancelotti’s where workrate is critical, watching the Blues get torn to ribbons by teams that pass smartly was excruciating knowing that was the standard we were aspiring to.

The Blues are already making moves to continue to shed names off the wage bill, with Kieran Dowell becoming the latest to be permanently offloaded, completing a transfer for an undisclosed fee to recently-relegated Norwich City.

That is only one half of Marcel Brands’ daunting task this summer, with the other being attempting to replenish the squad in short order with a mix of youth and experience to carry out Ancelotti’s vision while operating on a somewhat one-out, one-in budget.

The Liverpool Echo reported yesterday that Ancelotti has been holding daily Zoom calls with the club leadership and a face-to-face transfer summit is on tap for next week too. After the number of transfer window missteps in the last couple of years, fans patience with Brands appears to be wearing just a bit thin.

It would still be a little early to declare the Moise Kean transfer a misstep, but his return of two goals for a steep transfer fee for a youngster has raised a few hackles among the fanbase. Conversely though, this is one of the highest potential striking talents in the game today and it can be argued that he is worth the gamble just as Richarlison was two summers ago for a transfer fee that was widely mocked. That chatter ended quickly, didn’t it?

Ancelotti had been rumoured to have asked about Kean when he was still in charge at Napoli with the Italian champions Juventus looking to offload the youngster for some quick cash, and still backs him to come good.

“Of course, he is a player we need to give support to, because he is young.

“He came here from Italy, so it was a new adaptation for him, a new country.

“Also, he was alone during the lockdown and so it was not an easy season for him.

“But this season can give him more experience and more knowledge. He will be better and play more next season.”

Long renowned to be a ‘man-manager’ that takes a caring and involved approach in his communications with his players, there has been a narrative that Ancelotti has only succeeded with bringing in veterans to strengthen his squads, hence the long list of veterans the Blues are being constantly linked with.

Yesterday 36-year-old defender Branislav Ivanovic became the latest on that list, with Thago Silva and James Rodrigues at the top of rumoured ‘Ancelotti interests’. However, the stats seem to tell a different tale.

Just something to keep in mind as the rumour mill spins faster and the transfer rumours get wilder.