Former Everton ace Michael Ball has delivered a brutal verdict on Carlo Ancelotti's Goodison Park exit to Real Madrid by claiming he "bottled it".

The Italian made the shocking switch to the Bernabeu last week, returning to the club with whom he won the Champions League in the 2013/14 season.

Ancelotti did not manage to win La Liga but he also lifted the Copa del Rey and, the following season, the FIFA Club World Cup.

At Everton, though, he struggled to turn them into winners, finishing 10^th in his only full season on Merseyside.

Ancelotti signed a four-and-a-half-year deal when he joined the Toffees, but his spell lasted just 18 months.

Ball believes there was supposed to be a long-term project with Ancelotti as manager, but that he has run to the easiest option at the first sign of a new opportunity.

Speaking exclusively to The Transfer Tavern, he said: “But I just think it was an easy option for him. I feel at his age, he just realised that it was going to take a lot longer at Everton to get where he wants them to be. He is a winner at the end of the day.

“You know Everton can't go out and be paying 80, 90 million pounds on four or five players. And I just feel that he bottled it at Everton.

“I think he really just looked at the project and thought this is much more difficult than what I thought.

“The players probably couldn't go out and perform the way he'd liked because he's always been with high profile, high calibre players who will probably take that information and deliver on a football pitch.”

Ancelotti has never spent over two seasons at a club apart from with AC Milan, with whom he spent eight years.