What kind of team are Carlo Ancelotti's Everton?

Everton
(Image credit: PA Images)

The former Chelsea and Real Madrid manager has gone four years without a trophy. He may not even qualify for Europe this season. Contrasts are drawn with his glory days; his current plight feels proof of decline. Managers more associated with a philosophy can look down on him in the table. 

Still, enough about Jose Mourinho. Carlo Ancelotti, a man so pleasant that even Mourinho cannot create a feud with him, faces the Portuguese on Friday. The facts are similar, the interpretation different. If Everton versus Tottenham is the battle for seventh, it only looks like underachievement for one. It may be unusual to find each so far down the league but, 16 months into his reign, perhaps the most incongruous part is simply that Ancelotti is at Everton. He is as popular among the Everton support as Mourinho is unpopular among their Spurs counterparts.

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Richard Jolly

Richard Jolly also writes for the National, the Guardian, the Observer, the Straits Times, the Independent, Sporting Life, Football 365 and the Blizzard. He has written for the FourFourTwo website since 2018 and for the magazine in the 1990s and the 2020s, but not in between. He has covered 1500+ games and remembers a disturbing number of the 0-0 draws.