Sarri inquest as Chelsea stumble
CHELSEA boss Maurizio Sarri held a series of individual meetings with his players following the first home defeat of his reign against Leicester. Sarri’s side have lost three of their last six Premier League matches to slip 11 points behind table-topping Liverpool and a point worse off than this time last season under Antonio Conte. Sarri, who carried out a two-hour long dissection of the defeat at Tottenham by hauling players in for one-on-one discussions, said he would also be calling on individuals to explain their mistakes against Leicester. Sarri has spent the last couple of days outlining to his team where they are going wrong. ‘We will prepare a video about the match. We will prepare an individual video, with individual mistakes. I want to speak with the group, first of all,’ said Sarri. ‘Then with three, four or five players. We have to do everything to avoid the same problem in the future. Against Leicester, I think that I have an idea about what happened. So I want only confirmation.’ Sarri is considering restoring Olivier Giroud to his front line for today’s trip to Watford and moving Eden Hazard to a wide position after he operated as a false nine in recent weeks. Watford’s win over West Ham at the weekend moved them up to seventh. But manager Javi Gracia is not yet thinking about European qualification as he is too busy looking over his shoulder at the bottom half. ‘When I saw the table after the game I saw the relegation zone starts at 12 points,’ Gracia said. ‘I prefer to work day by day and try to enjoy the road, every moment. ‘I like to compete against all the teams. We can compete with all of them. The next game will be the same. We are in December and you know that football can change day by day.’