Jase

Never!

Kepa has been fined for what happened on Sunday, which is fair enough, but shouldn't Sarri have been fined as well? Like, I can understand his anger then but he's the manager and he almost walked out on the team and later derailed the team's preparation for the shootout. If Kepa's expected to behave better, then was Sarri's behavior really acceptable for someone who's supposed to be leading the club?

For now anyway. Lose to Spurs on Wednesday and he might well be gone, especially with a friendly run of fixtures after that for someone to come in and manage (ala OGS at United).

To be fair, it's the reaction that caused the PR disaster. Whatever Sarri planned, whatever Kepa thought the sub was seem to matter little at this point.

Chelsea’s Kepa Arrizabalaga fined after admitting to ‘big mistake’

Chelsea showed their true identity against Man City to question the whole purpose of Sarri-ball

Did you even read my post in full? I have no issue with manager criticizing the players but there should be repercussion for poor performances. If players play poorly, Sarri should drop them. Make a point, stamp his authority. But he's not really done that, has he? If players know they can play poorly and still start the next game, then why would they even bother trying?

First it was Chris Sutton and now Danny Murphy. Is the solution to problems these days just sacking people immediately? What on earth have we come to?!

Ancelotti: 'Less Sarriball, more Cholismo'

Mancini and Pellegrini with Man City. Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho with Man United. AVB, Sherwood with Spurs. Rodgers at Liverpool. Who got the blame when things were bad at those clubs? The manager. But at Chelsea? It's all about the players.

Exactly and to think so many went "I've never seen anything like it before"! There's Messi and then there's Luiz with PSG in 2016...

It shouldn't be a surprise by now but can I just say the media are fucking hypocrites with this whole player power thing? The pundits on Sunday Supplement talked about it at Leicester - in relation to Puel's sacking - like it's nothing and normal but when it comes to us, it's outrage and public outcry everywhere! Hell, Robert Huth was saying how it was hard to work with Puel at Leicester, how Puel didn't motivate the players and worked against them but was there any outrage? Nope! Nothing on players not playing for the manager and all that. It's one rule for Chelsea and another for everyone else!

It would be fucking hilarious if they had like a 10-minute clear-the-air talk while everyone else out here is losing their mind and debating the incident for days! Would be nice for everyone involved if they sit down and talk through what happened like proper adults. I mean, not everyone was 100% sure WTF was going on. Need to move on from this ASAP!

It was a cup final and we always have this tendency to put in a proper performance from time to time. Whether it was a turning point or whatever you want to call it, we'll just have to see what happens in the coming games (assuming Sarri survives post-Spurs).

@Jim The forum is broken again. Page shows up blank when you click a previous page in a thread.

If Luiz's comments are anything to go by, then I don't think the players knew what was going on as well.

Again, people moan about player power undermining Sarri and yet, he has helped to foster that at the club. He has criticized the players multiple times after bad losses and what has he done in the following game? Played them again. If players know they can play poorly and get away with it, then why should they listen to the manager? Yesterday as well, he had TWO chances to stamp his authority on the Kepagate - one during the incident and one post-match - and what did he do? He backed down both times and even threw a tantrum. How does one expect players to fully respect the manager if he isn't going to stamp his authority and is just going to throw his toys out of the pram rather than stand his ground and take control of situations?

Sums up the lack of communication between the coaching staff and players yesterday. These kind of things should have been discussed beforehand. Instead of having a proper preparation for the shootout, Sarri was still trying to have a go at Kepa, Rudiger had to hold him back and god knows what everyone else was thinking at that point.

Just on that incident you highlighted, Azpi no doubt should have tried to diffuse the situation earlier but he had a right to confront Sarri there. The players were trying to prepare and focus for the shootout and Sarri was still going mad over the earlier incident. He had a right to be angry but should have focused on the matter at hand at that point of time first. He's the manager, be the leader your players are looking at, be the bigger man. Deal with the shootout and then go pissed off at Kepa for all you want. Can't believe he even threatened to just ignore the pep talk after that. What a fucking farce this whole situation is!

Okay, it might not have entirely been Conte's or Mourinho's blueprint but large part of the performance was. We started off sitting back and then gradually worked our way up in the second half. You could say it was a hybrid of both styles but it wasn't anything pure Sarriball. And despite the good performance, think we only had like 1 shot on target in the entire game, which is poor from our part. Ignore the goals we conceded at the Etihad, it's the way we approached that game. There was so much space and gaps for City to exploit in that game, even after going 2-0 down in first 10-15 minutes.

Just saw that Azpi was apparently 3/4 up the pitch, waiting to take a throw-in. May explain why he may have seen it but not understanding what the hell was going on. That said, doesn't look good on his part that he didn't do anything.

On our game plan yesterday, kudos to Sarri for changing it up but funny thing is, he was brought in to implement his style but ended up using Conte's/Mourinho's to almost beat City in the final. Given the home win we had vs City in December and yesterday's performance, makes you wonder why Sarri didn't adopt the same approach at the Etihad Stadium recently. Might still have lost but wouldn't have lost 6-0.