Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)

Blame lies with likes of Hazard who go missing when going gets tough

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LET’S get one thing straight: Maurizio Sarri is not the problem at Chelsea.

The problem lies with Eden Hazard, David Luiz, Willian, Pedro and Co – all those players who are nowhere near as good as they want you to believe.

Jose Mourinho knew that was the case during his second spell at Stamford Bridge and Antonio Conte soon worked it out as well.

Sarri arguably realised quicker than either of those two given the speed with which he began to question the group’s mentality and tell the world how difficult they were to motivate. The 6-0 hammering by Manchester City on Sunday was an aberration and obviously it raised questions about the Italian’s future.

But as the club tries to work out the direction it now needs to go in, sacking Sarri should not be in its thinking.

If they were to get rid of him, they would deserve everything that came their way in the next few years.

What the Blues hierarchy should instead be saying is that Sarri has their backing, then help him build the squad he wants over the next couple of years.

They should put an embargo on any youngster leaving the club and make sure their academy is the bedrock of everything they do next.

They should get loan manager Eddie Newton to give them the names of the 10 most promising youngsters on their books, because along with Callum Hudson-odoi they’d have almost half of a very good squad right there.

I would blend them in with N’golo Kante, Kepa Arrizabala­ga, Marcos Alonso and Cesar Azpilicuet­a, who all deserve to stay, as well as Gonzalo Higuain, assuming he wants to.

But beyond those five, I can’t think of anyone else I’d want to keep, which is a damning indictment of the rest. Chelsea aren’t going to win the Premier League or Champions League with the squad they have for the next five years, but they could still qualify for Europe and be the best of the rest with their youngsters.

So why not start rebuilding in that way while giving Sarri two or three transfer windows to bring in some more establishe­d players. It would put them in a much stronger position than now.

The problem Chelsea have is that it’s no longer 2004 and they can’t just outspend everyone else.

So they have to start thinking differentl­y and, to fund those thoughts, I’d be snapping the hand off any club who wanted to give me anything from £100million to £150m for Hazard.

When Chelsea turn up, the Belgium star is world class but, when they are rolled over, he goes missing.

That isn’t the case with the really great players and neither do they finish 10th in the league, or get beaten 4-0 by Bournemout­h.

I copped a lot of stick from Blues fans for saying Hazard was part of the problem. But surely anyone who watched Sunday’s game wouldn’t disagree with me now.

It’s time to start again at Chelsea, but that doesn’t mean another change of manager.

 ??  ?? PART OF THE PROBLEM Hazard is one of the big-name Chelsea players who should be moved on
PART OF THE PROBLEM Hazard is one of the big-name Chelsea players who should be moved on
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