SARRI-BALL IS GREAT. . . SAYS MAN CALLED SARRI!
Why is he married to rigid system that doesn’t suit these Chelsea players?
IF Chelsea took as many risks in games as their manager did in his post-match analysis, there would be no problem. Maurizio Sarri’s takedown of his team is even more of a gamble than his patented style of play. We have been here before and, often, it does not end well.
Chelsea’s empowered dressing room has got rid of bigger names than Sarri and the reaction to this ferocious dismantling of egos will be seen against Tottenham on Thursday. They accept his criticism, or begin to disengage with Sarri-ball. We’ll soon know.
Sarri spoke in his native Italian, through a translator, after the game, better to get his point across. They were big points, too, about motivation and personality. Chelsea lacked both, apparently.
They were a hard team to motivate, a team not known for battling or fighting qualities, that lacked mental aggression, determination and ferocity, that missed leadership. This would have been easier to process if Chelsea’s team did not include some of the strongest footballers of the modern era.
N’Golo Kante, widely acknowledged as the finest central defensive midfielder in Europe until Sarri arrived and started playing him at right-half. Kante has won two Premier League titles with Chelsea and Leicester and a World Cup with France. And he lacks fighting qualities?
Eden Hazard is a Footballer of the Year, a Players’ Player of the Year, Silver Ball winner at the 2018 World Cup — and he is without mental aggression?
The prizes won by Chelsea’s starting XI included two World Cups, one European Championship, seven Champions Leagues, three Europa Leagues, 25 national titles across six countries and the FA Cup on eight occasions. Not bad for a group without personality.
Chelsea can be a troublesome bunch, though, we know that. In recent years, impressive peaks have been followed by inexplicable troughs. They can abandon a manager almost in a fit of pique. Yet Chelsea’s faltering in recent weeks does not appear entirely the fault of the starting XI.
Sarri is married to a rigid system of play that appears not to suit a significant number of his players. He complained that Chelsea lacked commitment in losing to Arsenal, but so many in his team have their energies exhausted trying to make Sarri-ball work.
Kante no longer guards, Hazard no longer creates and all orbits around lynchpin Jorginho, who would no doubt have appeared considerably more effective in the half-pace of the Italian league. He isn’t outstandingly quick of foot or thought and when a team swarms around him — as Arsenal did on Saturday — any pass of more than limited ambition frequently goes astray.
That Sarri spoke of Arsenal wanting victory more says much. Few elite teams have been accused of wanting it less than Arsenal and for Unai Emery’s players to be held up as personifications of commitment shows how sluggish Chelsea have become. It is generous in the extreme to afford them a single shot at goal, as some statisticians did — crediting a late cross by Marcos Alonso that Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno dealt with as it came within range. Without that, Chelsea last got an effort on target in the 63rd minute against Newcastle on January 12.
It was this fixture in the 2016-17 season that precipitated the change that won Chelsea the league. After losing 3-0 at Arsenal, Antonio Conte went from four to three at the back and Chelsea won 13 games on the spin.
Sarri is offering no such escape clause. ‘Conte changed to a threeman defence, but he was used to doing that anyway, so it wasn’t quite the same,’ he said. ‘This is the football I have. I am a good teacher of this football, so I don’t think it would be a good idea if I try to teach my players a different type of football.’
In other words — Sarri-ball is great, says man called Sarri. Yet what of the others? What of those not called Sarri? Does it suit them? It did not seem to on Saturday, when Arsenal’s midfield ran the game and the defence were very lightly raced, for all Chelsea’s possession.
If Sarri is the great coach he has been painted, why can’t he tweak his system just a little to accommodate the players he has? It does not do to greatly pull at the threads of his logic. It wasn’t long ago that he was saying the captaincy was an irrelevance and expressing bemusement at the English fascination for it. Now he says Chelsea lack leadership. So which one is it?
Emery will vouch for the difficulties a manager faces trying to change the culture of a club. The stand-off with Mesut Ozil — an unused substitute again and not missed — is a perfect example of a new manager in a head-on collision with a previous regime. Ozil was an important part of what Arsene Wenger was trying to achieve whereas he is a luxury item, at best, for Emery.
Arsenal were significantly quicker into the game than Chelsea, and had already missed several good chances when Alexandre Lacazette put them one up from a tight angle. Laurent Koscielny’s second, an attempted header that spun off his shoulder, gave Arsenal distance and Chelsea barely threatened in response.
Their last decent opportunity came before half-time when Marcos Alonso’s header struck a post. That aside, Arsenal had them in hand.
It was the first time since February 2004 that Arsenal have won consecutive home games against Chelsea.
‘Chelsea are a team that wants to play building up with very big possession,’ said Emery. ‘I like to press against these teams.’
In other words, Chelsea did what Arsenal hoped they would do, what Arsenal knew they would do, because there is so little variation in their play.
Nobody is suggesting Sarri tells his team to play long but it is interesting that when David Luiz struck one of his raking early passes, he came closest to putting Pedro in — as happened against Newcastle.
‘I think if you asked at the beginning of the season, can Chelsea keep the ball, people would have said no,’ explained Luiz. ‘And now we are able to do that, like the best teams in the world. So this is
our philosophy. I believe in it, I trust it, I just know we have to improve.
‘What Sarri has done is unbelievable, amazing, because normally a team needs one or two years to understand this philosophy. Everybody is trusting his job and everybody is with him.’
Everybody? Social media footage from the away end suggests patience is wearing thin with Sarri-ball, in the cheap seats at least. And no translator was required to understand that message.
ARSENAL (4-3-1-2): Leno 7; Bellerin 7 (Elneny 71min, 6.5), Sokratis 6.5, Koscielny 7.5, Kolasinac 6; Torreira 7.5, XHAKA 8, Guendouzi 7.5; Ramsey 7.5 (Maitland-Niles 67, 5); Lacazette 7 (Iwobi 67, 5), Aubameyang 6.5. Subs not used: Cech, Ozil, Monreal, Mustafi. Scorers: Lacazette 14, Koscielny 39. Manager: Unai Emery 8. CHELSEA (4-1-4-1): Arrizabalaga 7; Azpilicueta 6.5, Rudiger 6.5, Luiz 6, Alonso 5; Jorginho 5.5; Pedro 5.5 (Hudson-Odoi 80), Kante 5.5, Kovacic 5 (Barkley 63, 5), Willian 5 (Giroud 67, 5); Hazard 6. Subs not used: Caballero, Christensen, Emerson, Ampadu. Booked: Luiz, Barkley. Manager: Maurizio Sarri 5. Referee: Anthony Taylor 7.5. Attendance: 59,979.