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4. Sarri-ball
When Mauricio Sarri came to Chelsea this season, there were a lot of positives surrounding his appointment. His reputation at Napoli was perhaps the reason behind his appointment as Chelsea manager. In the first few games, Premier league fans were been treated to a new brand of football- Sarri-ball- that saw Chelsea register back-to-back wins.
Everything was moving nicely for Sarri despite seeing some scary moments in games against big opposition like Arsenal at the beginning of the season. Sarri-ball was all new to Chelsea players, and we even saw some first-team players such as Cahill and Victor Moses drop to the bench.
Perhaps nobody at Chelsea saw the cons of playing a rigid 4-3-3 system of play because of the ‘excitement’ it brought initially at Stamford Bridge. Even when Chelsea played Arsenal at the beginning of the season, the fans were too defiant to admit to the flaws of ‘Sarri-ball’. Arsenal did miss a couple of chances in that match and could have won easily by a fair margin.
Now everybody is starting to see the bigger picture- Sarri-ball has flaws. Nonetheless, Maurizio Sarri has refused to give up on this new formation. His stubbornness and uncanny behavior of not wanting to try new formation at Chelsea are simply digging his own grave.
Final thoughts
There is no time left for playing ‘mind-games’ at Stamford Bridge, especially for new managers. At Chelsea, its either you hit the ground running or face the sack- as simple as that. Time is not in any way on Maurizio Sarri’s side, and he knows it.
This same dressing room was the one that made Conte lose his job as Chelsea. We have been in this situation before. Sarri is, arguably, playing a very dangerous game here. If Chelsea lose their next two games, then we might see, again, Abramovich pull the trigger for the second year running.
