Carlo Ancelotti exuded a certain amount of confidence in his press conference ahead of facing Man City. Not a lot of managers in the Premier League, or across English football for that matter, would have managed to portray the same stoic calm as the Everton boss.
Carlo Ancelotti said: “It is important, yes. It’s important because we were able to move on from the game against Tottenham. I hope, this season, there will be more important games – maybe the game where we can play the semi final, or the game where we can play the final. Or the game that gives us the opportunity to play in Europe. Until now, it’s really important. Yes.”
He’s not getting ahead of himself, of course. But he’s someone who’s been here and done it all before with numerous clubs in the past. He knows what it takes to get a squad to the final of a competition and to win it, and that’s the winning mentality that he was able to project throughout his time in front of the media on Friday.
Pep guardiola remarked: “It’s a final tomorrow, a few weeks ago it wasn’t a final. Away, you have to realise how they play, how we can find spaces to attack, control set pieces because they have a master with [Gylfi] Sigurdsson as a taker and tough players like [Michael] Keane and [Yerry] Mina and [Dominic] Calvert-Lewin. The quality of players are there. They’re doing well in the league, fighting for qualification for the Champions League, they shows how good they have done this season.”
Set pieces was one aspect that Ancelotti also noted in his press conference as a strength to Everton, and returning players will surely be a huge factor in that. Sigurdsson has really stepped up his goal contributions over the course of this term, already bagging six goals and nine assists to make himself an important player in 2020/21 to the side. In the last round, he scored one and got three assists in what was an extremely creative performance – including a fantastic lofted pass over to Bernard for the winning goal in extra time.
