Kepa's stubbornness might be the final nail in the coffin of Sarri's managerial post

Kepa Arrizabalaga, the 24-year-old Chelsea goalkeeper, is the focus of world football right now - but for all the wrong reasons. In Sunday's Carabao Cup final against Manchester City, the Spanish goalkeeper was unwilling to come off after his manager wanted to make a tactical substitution in the 119th minute of the game.

This rare incident went down badly among the Chelsea supporters and their Italian manager Maurizio Sarri, who was caught on camera of leaving the dugout in anger. When he realized that he was probably walking out of his managerial job, he came back.

When asked about the incident Sarri said, “It was a misunderstanding between the two of us, but he realizes he made a big mistake and for me this matter is closed.”

It was clear that the Sarri was trying to douse the fire that he had created through his expression earlier. To be fair to him though, it was one of the best performances that Chelsea has produced in recent times; to restrict a formidable Manchester City team for 120 minutes needs some doing.

The incident, however, showed his loosening grip on his players. When a manager loses his dressing room, it is only a matter time before he leaves or is fired.

Sarri was already under a huge amount of pressure before coming to this game. Due to the recent implementation of the transfer ban by FIFA, his tenure with the club looked to be in the twilight stage. And this might be the last thing he needed in a time of distress.

While Sarri can be criticized all day long, you can't ignore what Kepa did. It was childish, unprofessional and shambolic to disrespecting his manager's orders, conveying a Sunday league-like attitude. Moreover, the substitution of Kepa before the penalty shootout seemed like a pre-planned idea of the manager as Caballero was seen doing his warm up 15-20 minutes prior to the incident.

Kepa did apologize later when asked about his reaction: “I made a big mistake with how I handled the situation. I wanted to take the time today to apologize fully.”

There are two other individuals who cannot avoid the responsibilities of this mismanaged incident.

The first is Chelsea captain Cesar Azpilicueta, who was seen having a heated argument with the manager just before shootout. He should have taken charge of this incident and should not have allowed it to get this far; at the very least he could have been the middleman to both Sarri and Kepa.

The second one who has nowhere to hide is Chelsea goalkeeping coach Henrique Hilario, who was seen having a conversation with Caballero instead of Kepa. Now, in these kinds of situations when the goalkeeper is injured, you will always see the goalkeeping coach behind the goal trying to talk with the goalkeeper and convey the message to the technical staff. But Hilario was nowhere to be seen.

It will be interesting to see what line up Sarri will opt for in the midweek clash against the Spurs, which happens to be important for the Blues in order to stay in the race for the Champions League spot next season. Will he bench Kepa and risk getting fired, or play Kepa and lose all sense of authority at the club?

It's a lose-lose situation for Sarri, whose managerial job at Chelsea might well be coming to an end.