SARRI: AN HOUR ENOUGH TO PREPARE FOR CITY

MAURIZIO SARRI will spend only one hour preparing his players to face Manchester City in tomorrow’s Carabao Cup final at Wembley, despite his job potentially resting on the result.

The Chelsea boss does not want to bombard his squad with information or fog their minds with memories of their 6-0 humiliation by City two weeks ago. It comes after Antonio Rudiger’s comments likening Sarri to a head teacher constantly talking to the squad.

On Thursday Chelsea beat Malmo 3-0 to reach the Europa League last 16, where they face Dynamo Kiev, though the first half hour left Sarri concerned for his side’s mentality.

‘In this match, for 30 minutes, I saw a team very worried,’ Sarri said afterwards. ‘Without confidence. So I don’t want to press them.

‘We will prepare for the match only on Saturday. I want to see something more free, so we’ll prepare the match in 60 minutes, no more.’

Sarri faces the sack if his team are embarrassed again tomorrow, and Chelsea have England assistant Steve Holland on a list of potential candidates to take over for the rest of the season. FA insiders, though, insist no approach has been made for Gareth Southgate’s No 2.

Sarri believes it is unfair that he is deemed to be in a crisis compared to Arsenal under Unai Emery. The Gunners sit a place above Chelsea in fifth but only due to a higher goals tally, with both teams on 50 points and a plus-16 goal difference.

‘We’re one point from the top four, the same points as Arsenal,’ he said. ‘People say Arsenal are doing well, so we are doing a little bit better because we’re in a final. And yet our season is a disaster. I don’t understand.’