Should Bayern Munich have sacked Carlo Ancelotti?

Bayern Munich sacked Carlo Ancelotti earlier this week in a shocking event given the timing, but were Bayern right to have let the Italian go?

Another big job, another big sacking for Carlo Ancelotti after Bayern Munich decided to make the move to remove Ancelotti from his position as manager at the club after only taking the job a year ago, in quite the surprising move.

Ancelotti was expected to carry on the work from Pep Guardiola and to use his experience to help the club win the Champions League – a feat that Bayern have been hoping to accomplish since they won the Treble in 2013 under Jupp Heynecks and the one real accomplishment that there really is for Bayern in the last couple of seasons given their complete dominance over the league.

Guardiola was expected to maintain Bayern Munich as a European superclub which is what he accomplished as he guided the club to three consecutive semi-finals in the Champions League. Ancelotti was expected to take Bayern to the next step, winning the entire competition.

Bayern Munich were not at any point particularly impressive during Ancelotti’s reign as manager, even despite winning the league last season they were not overly consistent and did not impress as well as they used to under Guardiola or Heynecks.

The most impressive Bayern may have looked under Ancelotti was the Quarter-finals of the Champions League against Real Madrid where they were unfortunate to have gone out considering Madrid benefitted from two offside goals and a missed penalty from Vidal. Perhaps if circumstances had gone Bayern’s way in that tie, things could have been different for Ancelotti but in the end it was just another step-backwards for the club.

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The calm, laid-back attitude of Ancelotti usually does him well at clubs, the calmness of his aura should have been a relaxing time at Bayern after coming off from the brilliant but frantic and highly intense Guardiola, much like how his calmness managed to restore Real Madrid after the toxic feeling of Jose Mourinho’s final season. The expectations at Bayern have been almost ridiculous and nigh-on impossible to live up too since that historic treble season in 2013 where anything short of winning the champions league is almost considered a failure, a label unfairly given to Guardiola throughout his time there and there may have been a hope that Ancelotti’s laid-back demeanour may have helped to calm down the expectations at the club.

But it seemed to have the opposite effect, Ancelotti managed to lose control of the dressing room with his very public feud with Thomas Muller, a player Ancelotti couldn’t get the best out of on the pitch, and Robert Lewandowski along with several other players at the club. His greatest strength was becoming his biggest weakness, criticisms from the players about his tactics surely did not help his case.

It never felt like Ancelotti belonged at Bayern Munich and it never felt that he would see out all three years of his contract at the club either. There have long been reports of him either moving away from the club to China in January or Julian Nagelsmann taking over from him in the summer. The timing of the move is certainly surprising and not many people would have expected it to have happened in September but that is essentially the only surprising thing about this entire ordeal.

In the end, it was likely the right move for Bayern to cut their losses on Ancelotti and move forward. As good as a manager as he is, he was never the right fit for Bayern Munich and everything about his stay there seemed off. His tactics never fit Bayern, with an over-reliance on crossing and after falling out with several key players along with a poor start to the league, it was best for everybody involved that Bayern Munich got rid and look towards a new manager – whether that be Julian Nagelsmann or Thomas Tuchel.