SARRI: IT WILL TAKE ME A YEAR TO MATCH CITY

MAURIZIO SARRI fears he will not be given the time to achieve his vision of making Chelsea the greatest team in Europe.

But he did point out that if Manchester City had sacked Pep Guardiola at the first sign of a blip, they would not now be the best team in the world.

Sarri’s start at Stamford Bridge mirrors the early progress of Guardiola at City.

The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss won his first six Premier League games in England, Sarri got within a whisker of matching that by winning his first five.

But Chelsea have won just once in the Premier League in the past month and Sarri said: “Will I be given time? I don’t know. What happens if Guardiola had no time in City?

“Maybe the best team in the world wouldn’t have been City in the last year. That’s not my problem though. My problem is to improve my players, to solve problems, to try to gain a lot of points. Then there is the club that will decide what is better for them.”

In the past, the Chelsea board have been quick to react, with Luiz Felipe Scolari arriving to much acclaim in 2008 and gone by the following February.

In March 2011, Andre Villas-Boas left nine months after he arrived and Sarri admits he has pretty much written off his first 12 months – after all, it was Guardiola who told him that he had to.

They met on holiday in Italy in June and Sarri added: “Pep told me the first season in England is really very difficult. For him, it’s impossible to improve the first season all 20 players.

“He told me, in the first season, you have to work Raheem Sterling to score first only on 14 players otherwise you are in trouble. You need too much time to improve all the squad. In England, it’s really very difficult.”

Guardiola eventually finished behind Tottenham in third place and 15 points adrift of champions Chelsea. He then splashed out £221.5million in summer and the following season broke all records.

Despite concerns about the character of his players, Sarri does not see the transfer market as the answer – a few astute buys maybe rather than a shopping spree.

“We need to work, we need to improve, we need to understand the style of playing,” he said. “We need to change the mentality. Not because the old mentality was bad, it’s just not suitable with the new way of playing.

“Then, after all this, maybe you do need one player in one position for changing the team. But you cannot think you can buy 11 new players without problems.”