The Everton Forum • A little look into the dysfunction...
Real Madrid Assistant Manager Davide Ancelotti has spoken to El Pais about his time at Everton.
“Me and my father (Carlo Ancelotti) enjoyed our time at Everton. We came in at the end of 2019 with a plan to get the club to where we all felt it deserved to be, competing at the top.
The owner (Farhad Moshiri) sold us a vision which really excited us, we knew then that this was the place to really achieve that. The club had clearly went through a period of instability and we were determined to change that.
Everyone knows that the Premier League isn’t easy, that first season was difficult. Everton was at the wrong end of the table when we took over. What we took from that season was the assessment of the squad and how we would improve that in the Summer.
Unfortunately by this time, the world was a few months into a pandemic. This had a significant impact on Football and the financial implications were great. This is something we had to work with.
That summer (2020) we were able to do some business to improve the squad including bringing in a player me and my father knew very well in James Rodriguez. However during this time problems began, there was a number of disagreements with the Director of Football (Marcel Brands) on strategy.
He (Brands) wanted players which we felt weren’t the right fit for Everton, in the end we came to an agreement on the players we would pursue but this was a long and difficult process.
The Chairman (Bill Kenwright who passed away in October 2023) would often sit in at these meetings giving advice which we found strange as this was something I had not seen at other football clubs.
Following the summer we started the season (2020/21) really well and we were confident that the club could really achieve european Football. There was of course a couple of poor runs throughout the season which ultimately cost us and we finished 10th, this was very disappointing.
My father had grown increasingly frustrated with the business done in the January window that season and after a meeting with the Chairman at the end of the season we discovered that the club had very little to spend in the summer (2021).
We were also told this was something unlikely to change for a number of years, at this point I think my father had made his decision that this project was coming to an end.
Just a day after this meeting Real Madrid had approached us to take over there, it was a pretty easy decision but that isn’t out of respect for Everton. It’s a wonderful football club however with the serious financial problems it was facing we decided that is was the right decision to leave.”
Davide Ancelotti has been at his father’s side as his assistant since the Bayern Munich job and the pair remain at Real Madrid having won a La Liga title, Champions League, Copa Del Rey, Supercopa de España, UEFA Super Cup & Club World Cup.
Statistics: Posted by Blueomar — Wed Jan 10, 2024 3:28 pm