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It's official! After weeks of speculation, Maurizio Sarri would be managing Cristiano Ronaldo at Juventus next season after both clubs involved in the deal announced the move.
It brings an end to a successful but highly divisive one-year spell at Stamford Bridge where the 60-year-old Italian faced constant criticism for his tactical predictability, redeployment of N'Golo Kante, and neglect of youth, among others.
While Sarri's departure might be cheered as good news by some sections of The Blues fanbase, it could actually turn out to be detrimental for them. In this piece, we shall be taking a look at three reasons why Sarri's departure to Juventus could affect Chelsea negatively.
#3 Putting Jorginho in a tactical conundrum
Maurizio Sarri made a name for himself with his feats on the bench for Napoli, with the Naples native winning plaudits for his managerial style of the Pertenopei and drew comparisons for the similarity between his and Pep Guardiola's playing pattern.
The fulcrum through which his Napoli side operated was Jorginho and it came as no surprise when Sarri asked the Chelsea board to bring the midfielder to the club, with the 27-year-old arriving the same day as his former manager.
Sarri caused major discontent among the Chelsea fanbase when he deployed the Italian international as the pivot of his midfield, pushing N'golo Kante (considered by many to be the premier defensive midfielder in the world) further up the field.
Jorginho is the player through which Sarri's play works and the fact that he topped the Premier League passing charts with 3,118 passes is indicative of just how central he is to Sarri's gameplan.
Any incoming manager is unlikely to share the same footballing philosophy with Sarri and is more than likely to redeploy N'golo Kante in his preferred position at the base of midfield.
This puts Jorginho in a sort of tactical limbo, as his limited skillset means that he cannot really be played anywhere else across the midfield.
He lacks the physicality and pace to act as a ball-carrying midfielder and this would prove to be a major conundrum for the incoming manager.
Jorginho was signed for the sum of £57m, just one year on from arriving at the club. Sarri's departure means that there would be a tactical dilemma in midfield for the next coach.
#2 The new manager would not have the privilege of building the team to suit his demands
Having run foul of rules concerning the signing and transfer of underaged players, Chelsea found themselves slapped with a two-window transfer ban by FIFA.
The ban means that the club would not be able to sign or register new players for two transfer windows starting with the current one and even though the West London side had the option of appealing the decision at the Court of Arbitration of Sports (CAS), reports surfaced that the club did not take up that alternative.
This means that, barring a sporting miracle, The Blues would not be able to augment their playing squad this summer and this is far from ideal for any incoming manager.
At least Sarri had the privilege of having worked with the current crop of players and drilled his methods into them, with Chelsea's end of season success last season indicative of how far he had brought them.
The new manager would not have this concession and the failure to go to the market to shop for his ideal players added to Eden Hazard's departure means that Chelsea could be in for a struggle next season.
#1 It would affect their stability
Regardless of who arrives as Chelsea's new manager, the club's stability is bound to be affected.
It is a well-known fact that every new manager comes with new coaching methods, tactical variants, training regimes, and sometimes dietary regulations and the players would find themselves in a situation where they have to start adapting to the new manager's methods.
Indeed, they had only just gotten used to Sarri's style which ran in stark contrast to his predecessor Conte's, and this is a far from ideal situation for the club's players to be in.
This goes in contrast with Chelsea's major rivals in the Premier League - Pep Guardiola has been at the helm at City for the last three years and has molded the Cityzens into an unstoppable winning machine, Liverpool are the strongest they have been in decades thanks to Jurgen Kloop, and Tottenham have maintained consistency under Pochetino for the last five years.
The appointment of a new manager means that the players might take some time to adapt to his methods, and when they eventually do, they might find themselves with a higher mountain to climb in their quest to rise to the summit of English football once again.
