One of the best developments in recent months is the vast improvement in the away form of Everton under Carlo Ancelotti, which was underlined yet again by last night’s 2-1 win at Wolves.
The away form of previous Everton sides was a major issue in past seasons and it was a particular problem under Ancelotti’s predecessor Marco Silva.
That’s not just to have a go at Silva, but simply to point out that the Toffees wayward form away from Goodison Park was a major factor in his difficulties and eventual sacking.
Without trying to excuse his failures, I think Silva was a little unlucky. To some extent he didn’t really have the players he wanted to adopt the sort of tactics and formations that Ancelotti has used successfully this season.
The Portuguese wanted to move to a 4-3-3, which Ancelotti has adopted this season, or so he said. He didn’t do so and was stuck playing a 4-2-3-1, which usually failed to function properly.
Defensively Everton were very poor under him letting in a lot of soft and preventable goals. The zonal marking system and constant changes in personnel didn’t help. These problems were especially costly away from home.
Then in the last couple of months of the 2018-19 season, Silva finally found a balance to his team and this appeared to work at last.
He had a settled defence with a new centre-back pairing of Michael Keane and Kurt Zouma, which was working well and finally stemming the goals being conceded. And the central midfield partnership of Idrissa Gueye and Andre Gomes was a well-balanced one combining Gueye’s defensive work rate and Gomes ability on the ball. Results improved at last, perhaps Silva had turned the corner..?
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Then in the summer of 2019 both Zouma and Gueye left and Silva’s big summer signing in midfield, Jean-Philippe Gbamin, was injured virtually right at the start of his Blues career and hasn’t been seen since. The club also failed to replace Zouma before the transfer window shut.
As 2019-20 began, the team’s form was erratic and uneven and as results declined, Silva came under huge pressure. His rigid tactics, poor team selections and inability to manage games and make decisive substitutions, all contributed.
In particular, Silva’s Everton side were desperately poor away from home and in the first half of his last campaign he only won a single match away at Southampton before he was sacked following the catastrophic 5-2 loss at Anfield in early December.
One of the first signs of slight, incremental improvement in the Toffees team when Ancelotti took over, were better away results.
In just his second match in charge, Everton best Newcastle United at St James Park. Then they won at Watford (a game which saw a tangible improvement in the attitude and desire of the players to turn that game around) and at Norwich too.
At the start of this season the Blues won away at Tottenham and since then have taken all the points at Crystal Palace, Fulham, Leicester City, Sheffield United and now Wolves. All of those wins though, apart from Leicester, have been by a solitary goal.
It’s hard to quantify how much the absence of fans has contributed to the Toffees successes and indeed other teams away from home this season. And when Everton had a few fans back, for example against Chelsea in December, it did appear to boost the team’s efforts.
It is probably a factor and of course the test will be when, if ever, fans do return to grounds in any significant numbers. However, Ancelotti’s tactics and the still fragile but improved mental resilience of the side are also contributing to this big improvement in results away.
The Italian often sets his teams up to be more defensively resilient and make them tough to break down when away, conceding possession and looking to nick a goal or two and secure wins just like last night. He has also his own version of Gueye in Brazilian Allan a player who has been outstanding, although he has been absent recently.
This approach is exactly what you would expect from the pragmatic Italian coach and it’s effectiveness hopefully bodes well for similar results over the next few months.