CHELSEA will be in the Champions League next season. They are well-placed to reach the Europa League final. They’ve beaten Manchester City once this season and took them to the limit in the League Cup final.
At the start of the season that, surely, would have seemed like a reasonable return. So why, then, all the grumbling? Why does it seem as though nobody really believes in Maurizio Sarri?
In part, it’s an issue of timing. Sarri knew this season would be difficult and told everybody so. His method takes time to impose, all the more so when he has a truculent squad resistant to change and one that has been given only the most cosmetic tweaks to turn it into something compatible with his philosophy.
The more that the team have been learning and adapting to Sarri's style of play, the better that Jorginho has looked in games.
Coincidence? I think not.
— FutbolChelsea (@FutbolCheIsea) May 7, 2019
Yet Chelsea, largely because of a run of inspired form from Eden Hazard, began the season with a 12-game unbeaten run. That perhaps inflated expectations or at least meant that Sarri’s warnings had been forgotten by the time the struggles came. After averaging 2.33 points per game for those first 12 matches, Chelsea have averaged 1.72 points per game since.
That contributes to a sense that there is no real progress being made. And while it’s easy to point out the impatience of the modern world and to speculate how many greats of the past would have lost their jobs before they achieved greatness had they been working today – Herbert Chapman, Matt Busby, Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson all had undistinguished first seasons before going on to achieve great success – it’s also true that Chelsea have been spectacularly awful at times this season, notably at Arsenal, Bournemouth, Manchester City and Everton.
Nothing is entirely clear at Chelsea, who have long combined the leakiest dressing-room in the Premier League with the tightest boardroom, but it does seem likely that Sarri will continue next season – and so become the first Chelsea manager of the Roman Abramovich era, other than Jose Mourinho, to keep his job despite failing to win the league after a full season in charge.
In one sense, that is only reasonable. To appoint Sarri is to buy into a long-term project. His way of playing is idiosyncratic; it will take time for players to adapt to. Sacking him after a season would only confirm Chelsea’s reputation for acting impulsively. But there are other issues at play here.
Sarri has been hampered by personnel. There was little about the squad he took over that suggested it would excel playing his way. He has been granted two players who thrived under him at Napoli, but Gonzalo Higuain looks well past his best while Jorginho was handed an unenviable brief. There is little history of deep-lying playmakers of his type thriving in the Premier League and his job was made even harder by the fact he was effectively replacing N’Golo Kante, one of the best and most popular holding midfielders the Premier League has known.
Sarri has given 1908 minutes to Chelsea Academy players which is more than any other managers in Abrahamovic Era. (Without Counting John Terry's Minutes). pic.twitter.com/Fp1AO5JhCG
— Chelsea Extra (@CFCExtra) May 5, 2019
Perhaps Chelsea’s board with their recently adopted policy of retrenchment wouldn’t have backed Sarri with transfers this summer anyway, but the Fifa transfer ban means that they cannot. Christian Pulisic will arrive, his deal agreed before the ban was imposed, and Eden Hazard will almost certainly leave but beyond that, unless a final appeal is successful, there is very little Chelsea can do to update their squad – other than bringing back loan players. Tammy Abraham, currently on loan at Aston Villa, may end up being given a run at centre-forward simply by default.
That is probably good news for Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who is just about the one player who does seem to have responded to Sarri’s demands. If the development he has shown in recent weeks does make him a regular next season, his goals from midfield will be a valuable addition.
Beyond Loftus-Cheek, though, it’s very hard to identify signs of progress. A full pre-season under Sarri, of course, will help – and the botching of the transition from Antonio Conte to Sarri last season is another failure at boardroom level – but what evidence is there really of Sarriball working in the Premier League? The expectation from watching Napoli was that Chelsea this season would be thrilling but fragile; as it has turned out, even when they have played well they have often been a little dull.
All of which leaves Chelsea in an awkward limbo: while writing off Sarri after a year seems absurd, equally there has been very little to excite fans or persuade them he may be a success in the future.
