‘Bulls**t’: Ancelotti dismisses Everton links with Madrid star
Carlo Ancelotti has labelled reports linking Everton with a move for Real Madrid star Isco as “bulls**t”.
The Spanish playmaker has been linked with a move to Goodison Park, following James Rodiguez from the Bernabeu.
It was claimed that Ancelotti was interested in an initial loan move in January with the option of a permanent move in the summer.
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But Ancelotti has rubbished the rumours.
He said: “It is not true that I am behind Isco. We haven’t started thinking about the team for the January market. So those comments are, as they say here, bull**** (laughs).”
The Italian boss was speaking to DIRECTV SportCo, with SportWitness translating the interview.
Ancelotti also gave his backing to Rodriguez, whose form has dipped slightly after a brilliant start to his Premier league career.
Ancelotti added: “James Rodríguez started very well. It is true that after playing against Liverpool he had problems because he had a blow and difficulty in recovering.”
“He played a game where he had not trained well [against Southampton] and performance has dropped for this reason.”
The ex-Chelsea boss also gave his take on why the Colombian struggled at Real Madrid.
“The quality of the player is not discussed; it has never been discussed either at Real Madrid or at Bayern Munich. I think that [with] these two teams, [he] had more difficulty because there is more competition in the team and, sometimes, it can happen that you don’t play,” the Italian explained.
“I think it’s more important for him to play than to train. In my opinion, he can have a good physical level if he plays. The physical level he gets by playing and this is why he hasn’t played much at Real Madrid. Changing a team that has been successful is much more complicated.”
Just about all of the greatest uncapped Premier League players ever were pursued by England. And only four of them were English.