Carlo Ancelotti is being heavily linked with a move to Arsenal as Unai Emery’s permanent replacement, but the Gunners should be thinking twice about a move for the three-time Champions League winner.
The Italian’s track record speaks for itself. He has all the trophies and experience anyone could ever dream of, but he’s no longer at the peak of his powers at the upper echelon of European football.
Ancelotti was something of a pioneer in his early days of management in Italian football. His regimented football philosophy was defensive and organised – not always popular but extremely effective. As his career has developed, he has managed at some of the biggest and best clubs in the world.
There has been a common theme running throughout most of the squads that he has worked with. They were all experienced, ready-made and in many cases, winners.
Without taking away from Ancelotti’s achievements, he has very rarely ever had to ‘rebuild’ a team in his image. If you go right back to his days at Parma, he had Zola and Stoichkov to call upon.
At Chelsea, he had a spine of Cech, Terry, Lampard and Drogba, all in their prime. Over in Madrid he was blessed with Cristiano Ronaldo and the new signing of Gareth Bale – the lists goes on and on.
What Ancelotti has specialised in over recent years is managing these huge egos, a skill that shouldn’t be taken for granted by any means, especially when you consider how much ‘player power’ there is in the modern game.
Ancelotti has fallen foul of replacing both Pep Guardiola and Maurizio Sarri at his two previous jobs. Two very meticulous managers who will work on every inch of their team shape and every minor detail in training. On face value, training to this extent can often be seen as boring and taxing for players, but it’s not until those coaches leave that they realise how much they actually enjoyed and improved under them.
This was the case for Ancelotti at Bayern and Napoli. Known for his lack of detailed training, players were left wanting more information, more detail and greater analysis from the Italian and his coaching team. Both Bayern and Napoli regressed under Ancelotti, with both squads left underwhelmed by his approach.
Twitter: As much as Carlo is a lovely guy, this is 100 per cent correct. Could add that his training sessions are incredibly… https://t.co/8EqrV4ws9H (@honigstein)
This is exactly why Arsenal should be concerned. The squad is unbalanced and out of sorts. The current team is far from unfixable, in fact, on paper it should be a very exciting and tempting job for the right coach.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and Nicolas Pepe could flourish into a world-class front three with the right guidance, while seeing the likes of Gabriel Martinelli and Matteo Guendouzi develop this season points to a bright future elsewhere in the squad.
Arsenal need time, they need identity and balance in the squad – something that Ancelotti has failed to deliver to his teams in recent years. Don’t let the size of the job fool you, the Gunners need a coach to galvanise this squad that is sleepwalking into mediocrity.
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