Mark Langdon: I'm no longer raising an eyebrow at Carlo Ancelotti

This season's ante-post tipping has gone well and it's always nice to be right. But you can only really learn from the mistakes so I am trying to take the positives from Crawley's promotion into League One.

A relegation treble of Sheffield United, Cheltenham and Crawley was officially denied when the Sussex side finished seventh in League Two before crowning a glorious campaign with victory over Crewe at Wembley a couple of weeks ago. However, the truth is that the bet was done by the end of September as the favourites for the drop started the campaign with seven wins, two draws and three losses from their opening 12 matches.

Crawley had signed a busload of players from non-league and my assumption was that if I hadn't heard of them they must be bad. But it turns out that for the Red Devils it was not better the devil you know. That was mistake number one, underestimating manager Scott Lindsey was next, and so it went on.

Admittedly, it was not quite as bad as backing Leicester to go down the season they won the Premier League but you need to be big enough to own up to errors of judgement and therefore it's time for me to say sorry to Carlo Ancelotti.

I have never really rated Ancelotti as a manager.

Apart from the two Champions League trophies each with Milan and Real Madrid, the double with Chelsea and league titles in Germany and France what else had he achieved in the game?

Even as I write this there is an urging to go back to my previous thoughts. He should have won more than six league titles given his coaching career started in 1995 and has taken him to Reggina, Parma, Juve, Milan, Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid twice, Bayern Munich, Napoli and, er, Everton. But it's time to embrace Ancelotti's remarkable career as he bids for a fifth Champions League title as a manager when Madrid take on Borussia Dortmund at Wembley on Saturday.

Eyebrows were definitely raised at Talksport towers when broadcasting as a supposed European expert I once referred to Ancelotti as the Italian version of Harry Redknapp. It was not meant disrespectfully - Redknapp's football is among my happier memories as a lifelong fan of Tottenham - but the message boards lit up and there's no hiding place from the barrage of criticism as you sit in front of a monitor where tweets and text messages pop up at a rapid rate.

The point was that Ancelotti is not the sort of process-obsessed manager who appear to be taking over football, copying the genius of Pep Guardiola to varying degrees of success. If you want a good job these days - and look at Enzo Maresca and Vincent Kompany as two who have recently gained lofty managerial promotions - then it's all about being married to a system. Plan B is to make sure Plan A works and you don't even attempt to venture away from the approach, even if short-term results suffer.

Redknapp would not do that and nor does Ancelotti. They look at the squad available to them, put the players in positions where they are comfortable and then find a system which suits them rather than try to turn someone with the flair of Jack Grealish into Vinny "Sideways" Samways.

That makes Real Madrid and Ancelotti, who has worked for tricky owners Silvio Berlusconi, Qatari Sports Investments and Roman Abramovich, the perfect combination. He understands the volatility of the job, doesn't need to know that the Under-12s are playing the same way as the first team and he's not going to tell Vinicius Junior to spend hours each day watching videos of the opposition right-back to understand his weaknesses. Keep the dressing room happy and play to your strengths.

Carlo - as Steve McManaman always calls him when commentating, which in a way plays into the demeanour of a friendly uncle rather than superstar manager - famously had a pop at "surly" Fabio Capello for his lack of human touch and there is a lot to be said for not obsessing over every last football detail.

Ancelotti's autobiography is even called "The Beautiful Games of an Ordinary Genius" and he did a follow-up book "Quiet Leadership: Winning Hearts, Minds and Matches."

I still prefer the Italian Harry Redknapp, but it sums Ancelotti up well.

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