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Carlo Ancelotti has a much better record in the FA Cup than Jürgen Klopp, despite spending only two seasons in England to the Liverpool manager’s four. Chelsea went all the way in Ancelotti’s first season at Stamford Bridge, winning at Wembley to leave the Italian newcomer with an impressive league and Cup Double, and, though they were knocked out by Everton in the fourth round the following year, they had already completed a 7-0 rout of Ipswich in the third.
It is fair to say that Klopp’s FA Cup career thus far has never hit any of those heights. His Liverpool side have made third- or fourth-round exits in each of his four excursions into the competition, the only three teams Klopp has succeeded in beating in the Cup are Exeter, Plymouth and, er, Everton, and last year, when Liverpool went out in the third round at Wolves, the manager faced criticism for fielding a much-changed side featuring three teenagers making their debuts.
This may amount to only the thinnest of straws for Everton to clutch at as they prepare for Sunday’s Merseyside derby at Anfield, but when Ancelotti vowed to “fight for the FA Cup” on his first day at Goodison at least it did not sound like an empty promise.
The new Everton manager knew full well that he could not have been handed a tougher third-round tie, with Liverpool now champions of the world as well as Premier League leaders and their rivals winless at Anfield since the days of Walter Smith and Kevin Campbell in 1999. Yet at minimum there is reason to believe the gulf between the two neighbours might have narrowed a little since the abject 5-2 thrashing at the start of last month that signalled the end of Marco Silva’s time in charge.
Few Everton players have anything bad to say about Silva, either now or when he was still manager, yet many are prepared to admit the transformation in outlook over the last month has been quite startling. First Duncan Ferguson did what Silva was apparently incapable of doing, injecting some passion and urgency into performances to help restore lost pride and improve morale.
Then in Ancelotti Everton found themselves with a coaching appointment they would barely have dared dream of a few months earlier. Not only has the Italian won more FA Cups than Klopp, he has won more Champions Leagues, for goodness sake. Elite managers do not generally do the tour of Milan, Madrid, Munich, Paris and London then end up on the underachieving side of Stanley Park.
While it is much too early to judge whether Everton’s bold coup will deliver the desired success, in the short term at least there is a belief within the squad at the moment that was hard to discern even a few weeks ago. “We were in a dark place the last time we went to Anfield,” is how one player puts it. “Everything seems much brighter now.”
Everything is relative, however, and the fact remains that for Liverpool at present the future is so bright supporters are practically wearing shades. Klopp did his usual amount of complaining about the festive fixture overload – not without reason – then proceeded to collect nine points from a possible nine over the holiday period. No one else in the Premier League could match that, and Everton’s best policy might be to ignore the daunting statistics building up over Liverpool’s imperious league form and hope Klopp continues to treat the FA Cup lightly.
While he does have a long list of injuries and some tired first-team regulars, and clearly intimated after beating Sheffield United he would prefer to make a few changes, the difficulty the German faces is to do with the derby dimension.
Liverpool supporters would not shed too many tears over another early FA Cup exit if it left a clear run to a first league title in 30 years and perhaps even a third successive Champions League final. But they have no wish to see Everton prevail at Anfield and they would not appreciate Klopp making life easier for their rivals by resting key players in the way he did at Wolves last season.
Yet the pattern established over the last few years has been for Liverpool to be a little blasé about the FA Cup, regarding it as an unofficial opportunity for a mid-season breather, and, though Klopp is aware of the sensitivities surrounding a local derby, there is still a feeling his team selection might be quite daring.
As befits a manager who in his time at Napoli beat Klopp’s Liverpool this season and last, Ancelotti has remained admirably upbeat about the forthcoming encounter since arriving on Merseyside. “Nothing is impossible in football,” was his first message to Everton supporters. More recently he implored them to live for the present and not in the past, politely ignoring the fact that a considerable proportion of Everton followers are simply not old enough to live in the past. Now he is confirming that of course Everton have a chance at Anfield, as long as they put in a great performance. “Everything has to be perfect,” he stressed. “A normal performance will not be good enough.”
He is right there: a normal Everton performance will certainly not be good enough, though due to the events of the last month or so no one is quite sure any longer what a normal Everton performance might be.
It is Ancelotti’s duty to raise the spirits of players and supporters before such a big game, and to his credit he has succeeded in creating a little uncertainty about the outcome when history and statistics suggest there should be none.
Currently being told by former Everton players left, right and centre which players he needs to buy this month, Ancelotti has sensibly put transfer business on a back burner until today’s game is out of the way. He has already supervised three league matches, not counting the one he watched from the stands against Arsenal, though for better or worse one feels this will be the moment Ancelotti’s Everton career gets properly under way.
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