Everton’s brief period with Carlo Ancelotti in charge feels like a fever dream at this point.
After all, the highs of watching him oversee James Rodriguez masterclasses at Goodison Park were swiftly replaced by the lows of watching Rafael Benitez undo all of his hard work, with Sean Dyche now left to pick up the pieces.
He is struggling to drag this financially-ravaged institution to safety, year on year, but he keeps admirably plugging away anyway.
Now, Simon Jordan has sought to explain why Ancelotti even took the job in the first place.
Simon Jordan makes Everton and Arsenal manager claim
Speaking earlier this morning live on talkSPORT (01/05, 10:40 am), the three pundits were full of praise for Ancelotti and his management style.
However, they, as do many others, remain baffled as to how Everton ever tempted him to join their sinking ship.
Jim White first theorised Farhad Moshiri’s sales pitch, noting: ‘I can second guess the conversation he had with Farhad Moshiri, he would say to Moshiri ‘Yeah, alright, what you’re offering me is very attractive. Everton? Yeah, I’ll do it. But if Real Madrid come in, and that’s precisely what happened.’
Then, Jordan gave his own thoughts on why he might have made the move: ‘I think he went to Everton because Everton offered him more money than Arsenal did. I think that was the driving force for Ancelotti to take himself and his son over to Everton and manage Everton.
‘And if that was the criteria that Carlo Ancelotti determined his career path at the time I’m not sure that is to be hugely admired. But notwithstanding that, if you look at his recent record the outlier in all of that is Everton.
‘I mean you’re talking about him managing Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Napoli, who were a force in Italian football… oh, and Everton.’
Carlo Ancelotti was the right appointment at the wrong time for Everton
Had Everton snagged Ancelotti at the start of Moshiri’s era, it is painfully exciting to imagine what he might have been able to create at Goodison Park with the unlimited funds that the likes of Marco Silva and Ronald Koeman were instead trusted with.
After all, on a relatively limited budget, we got to see the calibre of players the legendary Italian could coax into the club with James Rodriguez and Allan both joining in the summer of 2020.
However, this thought experiment is one that will only bring pain, as the only reason that the Toffees were able to capture a man of his calibre was because he was in between jobs.
Having been inexplicably fired from the Napoli position, and with the top jobs at Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain all occupied by managers like Zinedine Zidane, Hansi Flick and Thomas Tuchel, he was in limbo.
Meanwhile, back when Everton first appointed Koeman, it is worth noting that the 64-year-old was more than busy leading the aforementioned German giants to further silverware.
He would never have considered Merseyside as an option and was likely only eventually tempted by a hefty financial incentive.
This is all hypothetical, but it is an important point to note regarding his short and acrimonious exit in 2021.
