3 Reasons Why Maurizio Sarri is failing At Chelsea
February 20, 2019
After beginning well at the start of the Premier League season, Maurizio Sarri has started struggling at Chelsea. His team is now sixth in the table and has been kicked out of the FA Cup.
Chelsea’s boss is also under serious pressure after an embarrassing 6-0 thrashing at Man City. Maurizio is a good coach, and has talented players at his disposal in Chelsea, so why is his tactical system not working?
Here are some reasons why Maurizio Sarri is failing at Chelsea.
1. He is too idealistic
Maurizio is still trying to play his style of Italian football in the English League. Italian football is typically slower paced than in England. Maurizio Sarri has focused more on trying to imbibe his ideas into his players rather than focusing on getting the results.
Sarri blames the players’ failure to learn his methods as a sign that they are difficult to motivate. However, it is a sign that the coach needs to become less idealistic.
Sarri so much wants his players to adopt his tactical identity, forgetting that English football is too random and too aggressive.
2. He has no Plan B
Sarri has lined up with exactly the same first 11 for most matches he has managed this season and the same formation. A midfield trio of Jorginho, Kanté and Kovacić has always been deployed. Jorginho is his anchor man and has been an integral player in his team.
Jorginho is a brilliant player with incredible passing skills. He starts all of Chelsea’s attack and recycles the bald in the midfield. However, when he is man-marked, Chelsea begins to collapse. Jorginho is also very poor defensively, failing to shield the back four and stopping counter attacks. Sarri hasn’t found out a plan B that could fix this dilemma. Swapping Kanté for Jorginho in defensive midfield would just do the trick.
3. It is his first time coaching outside Italy
It is worthy to note that Sarri has never managed a team outside of Italy; this is a new circumstance for Sarri despite his enormous experience as a coach. He needs time to adapt to English football and understand the game patterns.
However, Chelsea fans won’t take this as an excuse, because his fellow Italian coach Antonio Conte won in his first season as Chelsea coach.
Nonetheless, it is not easy for any coach to perform well in their first season and to be fair, Sarri started well.
Do you think there is another reason why Sarri is failing at Chelsea?
This article is brought to us by our Sports Writers Club resident columnist – Collins Michael Nwokolo. Follow him on Twitter and Pinterest.
