The Sarri Thread

[Jase 43,479]

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/aug/04/maurizio-sarri-chelsea-jorginho-manchester-city-pep-guardiola

Quote

Yet whether Chelsea have the players to go toe-to-toe with City is debatable. Sarri is under no illusions about the size of the task. He is still haunted by the memory of City tearing into his Napoli side in the Champions League last October. “The first 20 minutes were a nightmare,” he said. “It was horrible.”

City won 2-1 before triumphing 4-2 in Naples two weeks later. Yet Sarri will still tell his new team to play with Napoli’s fearlessness. “I’d like my players to have the personality and be able to think that we are at the same level,” he said. “Maybe at the moment it’s not true, but they have to start to think that they can play against everybody in every stadium, against every team.”

[Starman60 1,343]

2 hours ago, dreamcfc said:

Agree on Courtois but I said this would be what I would like to see if we closed the transfer window now.

Interesting opinion on the XI but do you not think if we were to play those 3 midfielders they would be too lightweight? I know Kante is there but still, we need someone who can carry the ball in there for me, Cesc doesn't have the legs, we can't rely on Kante to be mopping up and carrying the ball forward all the time and we've seen Jorginho isn't that player either... that is the idea of Barkley but I think he needs more time. I really think Willian could do a job there, he did it under Mourinho and probably played his best for us. I don't see what Barkley offers that Willian wouldnt.

I don't see the need to play Cesc/Jorginho together, Jorginho is doing Cescs job from further back, maybe against teams where we dominate we could do this but in general I think we need more balance, we need another profile of player to complete the jigsaw, I really think Willian could be it.

This would also give more time to Hudson Odoi on the wings, obviously you rate him quite highly as you say he should be starting but do you really think he's done enough to take Pedro and Willian off RW? I'd prefer to start Pedro and bring CHO off the bench.

 

I like Willian, but just dont think the CM spot would suit him. The way Sarri wants us to play is by short passing in tight spaces before unleashing our attack. I think Jorginho can be the ball carrier and Maestro in the middle, whereas Fabregas can pick out any of our front three usually with ease.  .Kante would be the constant in the midfield in a slightly deeper role. If hudson-Odoi doesn't play I would rather see Willian than Pedro get the spot. Barkley could have a part to play but I feel he's not good enough to hold down a permanent spot. And Baka, well you can forget him. I take your point that Jorginho can play the Cesc role, but he is more than that. He breaks up the opposition moves and if he does that from deep, knocks balls to Cesc who then splits defences with his passes. Quick incisive play that Sarri likes and could work for us.

[Unionjack 7,531]

5 hours ago, Starman60 said:

knocks balls to Cesc who then splits defences with his passes. Quick incisive play

The problem is tho thats not Cescy now. He needs more time and space to be able to do his magic and in this system he wont get it

Barkleys not match sharp yet and wont be unless he gets game time.

We will have an idea of whats in Sarris mind with the Shitty lineup. Well for the Hamsik role anyway. Whoever starts will be who he reckons our best chance.

BUT I still think thats the position he thinks we need a bit of something extra.

[Starman60 1,343]

4 hours ago, Unionjack said:

The problem is tho thats not Cescy now. He needs more time and space to be able to do his magic and in this system he wont get it

Probably right, but he still has a fantastic football brain. When he came off against Arsenal the other night the team seemed to lose its rhythm. I know other players came off but Jorginho had no-one on his wavelength after that. Barkley ran and ran, but ran into channels where other players were, some poor passing choices and weight of passes. Hopefully with some work he will settle into the system and perhaps today he will get his chance. At this time I just think that for now Cesc has adapted to Sarri's system quicker than the others and is very comfortable with it.

[the wes 7,212]

I bet after that match  against city sarri wants more than one signing 

[Johnnyeye 7,508]

2 minutes ago, the wes said:

I bet after that match  against city sarri wants more than one signing 

more like, beg De Laurentis to take him back to Napoli 

[zekinjo 449]

A difference in this match was that big that I’ve thought at some point that it’s a match between Man City and bunch of farmers. 

 I’ll be hugely surprised if Chelsea somehow ends up playing in the Champions League in the next couple of years and this match from today has nothing to do with my opinion but everything with so many wrong players (some experienced one) with no place in this system who’s gonna play no matter what. When you add to this an owner who doesn’t give a flying fuck, well it’s a good night.

 

 

 

[dreamcfc 182]

1 minute ago, Mana said:

I just hope Sarri sticks by his attacking football and not eventually cave in to doing defensive football because the players couldn’t cope.

Hold on to your seatbelts lads, because this is going to be a painful ride.

He will have to adapt, like every other manager has had to.

[Jase 43,479]

3 minutes ago, Mana said:

I just hope Sarri sticks by his attacking football and not eventually cave in to doing defensive football because the players couldn’t cope.

Hold on to your seatbelts lads, because this is going to be a painful ride.

We already know this team can't adapt to Sarri's tactics. Well, not all of them. So I guess the question is, are the board willing to back Sarri and give him the players that he wants? Highly doubt it. So, if Sarri continues with what he does and doesn't get the results, then this is only gonna end one way and the whole shit cycle will start again.

[Superblue 6,372]

Today has clearly showed the bar which Chelsea must work towards reaching. At this moment we are pretty far away but the overreaction today on this forum is incredible.

Sarri has been at the club for less than 3 weeks in a summer where not even all of our players are back for pre season yet. To add to this we've travelled to Australia in this timeframe and also played games in France and Ireland. 

The change we are making is massive. It's not just "hey, we're going to play a more expansive, attacking style which all the players are going to enjoy and everything will be good!". Not only does Sarri want the team to play in a certain way with our passing and movement, but we are also being coached to press all over the pitch, in particular the final third which we haven't been doing previously under Conte and obviously the shift to a back 4 with a high line in comparison to a back 3/5 with a deep line. 

You could see today a player as tactically solid and dependable as Azpilicueta was even struggling tucking in way too much and leaving a lot of room out wide. These changes won't be learnt in a couple of weeks. Remember that Conte didn't implement his 3-4-3 until the end of September. He largely kept Mourinho's tactics which the team were used to and drilled towards playing until this point to give the best chance of getting some early results, but even that left us struggling. This is a work in progress and a lot of patience will be required.

I understand some of the reservations regarding our squad and there are some players who clearly don't cut it, but this is still a good group of players, a large group of which have won 2 of the last 4 premier leagues. People say that Chelsea don't have the players that can play the way Napoli did but we're comparing to his finished article after 3 years work with them. Look at some of those Napoli players the year that Sarri took over and they would have been saying similar things. Jorginho was a backup player that Sarri ended up moulding the team around. Mertens and Insigne were nothing more than squad players too. The Napoli fans thought Koulibaly was useless and looked terrible trying to play the ball out from the back. They have all been coached and trusted in time to perform how they did for Napoli.

The biggest issue is clearly up front for us. Morata hasn't played well at all and doesn't appear to be the answer, but Sarri hasn't had Bats or Giroud yet so has had no alternative. Let's also note that at Napoli, having lost Higuain he converted Mertens who was nothing more than a squad player winger previously. If there is a coach that is creative and willing to coach what he has to make it work then we have that man.

We are not likely, or expected, to be challenging Man City for the title this season. But I do think we've got a good chance of making the top 4 this season. But it will take some time and patience for this to get to where we all want it to reach.

[11Drogba 2,000]

 

[NiclasCFC 2,582]

9 hours ago, Superblue_1986 said:

Today has clearly showed the bar which Chelsea must work towards reaching. At this moment we are pretty far away but the overreaction today on this forum is incredible.

Sarri has been at the club for less than 3 weeks in a summer where not even all of our players are back for pre season yet. To add to this we've travelled to Australia in this timeframe and also played games in France and Ireland. 

The change we are making is massive. It's not just "hey, we're going to play a more expansive, attacking style which all the players are going to enjoy and everything will be good!". Not only does Sarri want the team to play in a certain way with our passing and movement, but we are also being coached to press all over the pitch, in particular the final third which we haven't been doing previously under Conte and obviously the shift to a back 4 with a high line in comparison to a back 3/5 with a deep line. 

You could see today a player as tactically solid and dependable as Azpilicueta was even struggling tucking in way too much and leaving a lot of room out wide. These changes won't be learnt in a couple of weeks. Remember that Conte didn't implement his 3-4-3 until the end of September. He largely kept Mourinho's tactics which the team were used to and drilled towards playing until this point to give the best chance of getting some early results, but even that left us struggling. This is a work in progress and a lot of patience will be required.

I understand some of the reservations regarding our squad and there are some players who clearly don't cut it, but this is still a good group of players, a large group of which have won 2 of the last 4 premier leagues. People say that Chelsea don't have the players that can play the way Napoli did but we're comparing to his finished article after 3 years work with them. Look at some of those Napoli players the year that Sarri took over and they would have been saying similar things. Jorginho was a backup player that Sarri ended up moulding the team around. Mertens and Insigne were nothing more than squad players too. The Napoli fans thought Koulibaly was useless and looked terrible trying to play the ball out from the back. They have all been coached and trusted in time to perform how they did for Napoli.

The biggest issue is clearly up front for us. Morata hasn't played well at all and doesn't appear to be the answer, but Sarri hasn't had Bats or Giroud yet so has had no alternative. Let's also note that at Napoli, having lost Higuain he converted Mertens who was nothing more than a squad player winger previously. If there is a coach that is creative and willing to coach what he has to make it work then we have that man.

We are not likely, or expected, to be challenging Man City for the title this season. But I do think we've got a good chance of making the top 4 this season. But it will take some time and patience for this to get to where we all want it to reach.

This post should be pinned in this thread at least until christmas, spot on.

[Cosmin 2,484]

The Community Shield, specially when there's an international competition taking place, has to be one of the most irrelevant football games in the world of this sport. 

We missed most of our main players (the main goalkeeper - no matter if it's gonna be Courtois or another, one central defender - Christensen, our best central midfielder - Kante, our best player - Hazard and our best striker - Giroud).  

There were some signs of the maybe overly discussed change of style, but it's clearly going to take a lot of time before we look as a compact and strong team, capable of playing fast spectacular football.

People need to be patient. The worst thing that can happen is us missing out on the UCL spots once again, but it's not like we are so not used to it that we wouldn't accept a season of sacrifice. 

Sarri clearly needs time, even Guardiola needed it. But he also needs the board to back him on the market, just like Guardiola needed that too. We are unacceptably quiet there and will probably panic buy during the last few days of the window. 

I just hope we sign a decent keeper and we keep Kante and Hazard. Martial would be fantastic, as Pedro can only be a decent sub. Another CM would help, in order to have Fabregas warming the bench as he should. 

So, from where I'm standing, there's a lot of work to be done and we need to be very very patient and tolerant when it comes to the manager's work. 

[kellzfresh 7,229]

4 hours ago, Cosmin said:

The Community Shield, specially when there's an international competition taking place, has to be one of the most irrelevant football games in the world of this sport. 

We missed most of our main players (the main goalkeeper - no matter if it's gonna be Courtois or another, one central defender - Christensen, our best central midfielder - Kante, our best player - Hazard and our best striker - Giroud).  

There were some signs of the maybe overly discussed change of style, but it's clearly going to take a lot of time before we look as a compact and strong team, capable of playing fast spectacular football.

People need to be patient. The worst thing that can happen is us missing out on the UCL spots once again, but it's not like we are so not used to it that we wouldn't accept a season of sacrifice. 

Sarri clearly needs time, even Guardiola needed it. But he also needs the board to back him on the market, just like Guardiola needed that too. We are unacceptably quiet there and will probably panic buy during the last few days of the window. 

I just hope we sign a decent keeper and we keep Kante and Hazard. Martial would be fantastic, as Pedro can only be a decent sub. Another CM would help, in order to have Fabregas warming the bench as he should. 

So, from where I'm standing, there's a lot of work to be done and we need to be very very patient and tolerant when it comes to the manager's work. 

Its incredible really how we're not active in the market. I really thought we would have taken the initiative to get Higuain, a player who worked with Sarri, understands his system, and scored 36 league goals under him, even if it was a one year loan. But we moved sluggishly and now we can see that Morata is still the same old striker as majority of last season (falling on the ground from breeze, missing easy chances with his feet).

 

The loss of Costa was enough to make us score just 56 goals and ultimately out of top four. We still havent done anything to address the lack of goals from the team, we think Hazard will suddenly score 30 goals to compensate...... Even in this preseason we haven't scored more than one goal.

Bottom line is, we're in for a dogfight in the top four with Torres... Morata as our striker.

[manpe 10,861]

I haven't been reading this forum much this past week, but skimming through I see posts like the ones above, so there must be reasons for people to write this. This tells me that there has been a meltdown over our CS loss and some posts on that thread I've seen are puzzling. Why? What did some people expect?  This guy hasn't been at the helm for even a month. Anybody seriously thought we had a chance against a settled champion Guardiola side? Okay, there is always a fluke chance to scrape it, but that's not the point. As much as I've seen us this pre-season I am pleased with the signs of change, they are trying, but there are some obvious bottlenecks in this team. With a coach like Conte we'd have a higher chance of winning trophies, but the club clearly aren't that interested in that anymore, it's all about change of identity now. Every game this season will be part of a learning curve, let's have this discussion again in a year or two.

[Unionjack 7,531]

3 minutes ago, kellzfresh said:

Its incredible really how we're not active in the market. I really thought we would have taken the initiative to get Higuain, a player who worked with Sarri, understands his system, and scored 36 league goals under him, even if it was a one year loan. But we moved sluggishly and now we can see that Morata is still the same old striker as majority of last season (falling on the ground from breeze, missing easy chances with his feet).

 

The loss of Costa was enough to make us score just 56 goals and ultimately out of top four. We still havent done anything to address the lack of goals from the team, we think Hazard will suddenly score 30 goals to compensate...... Even in this preseason we haven't scored more than one goal.

Bottom line, we're in for a dogfight in the top for with Torres... Morata as our striker.

B..B..B..But we still got Bats n Giroud, Shirley one of those can give us 20 goals no?

[kellzfresh 7,229]

5 hours ago, manpe said:

I haven't been reading this forum much this past week, but skimming through I see posts like the ones above, so there must be reasons for people to write this. This tells me that there has been a meltdown over our CS loss and some posts on that thread I've seen are puzzling. Why? What did some people expect?  This guy hasn't been at the helm for even a month. Anybody seriously thought we had a chance against a settled champion Guardiola side? Okay, there is always a fluke chance to scrape it, but that's not the point. As much as I've seen us this pre-season I am pleased with the signs of change, they are trying, but there are some obvious bottlenecks in this team. With a coach like Conte we'd have a higher chance of winning trophies, but the club clearly aren't that interested in that anymore, it's all about change of identity now. Every game this season will be part of a learning curve, let's have this discussion again in a year or two.

Honestly its not like I am saying Sarri doesn't need time, all I want is for Sarri to have a little more backing from the board.

He got his midfielder in Jorginho, he was denied his defender in Rugani(we're playing an inconsistent luiz because of this decision), denied his CM in Golovin(we're playing an incredibly slow fabregas because of this decision), but I'm okay with those. What I am not at ease with is the striker position. I think a lot of fans have been spoilt by hazards ability and have forgotten how crucial a striker who can score 20-25 league goals is to a team. What happens when we fully adopt Sarri's system, playing fluid football, creating chances and Morata ends up missing all the chances and we lose anyway? We'll be going down the Arsenal route with such conditions.

Anyways imo any realistic chance of our top four hopes depends on if we have a player in our team that can score 20-25 league goals. Lets hope Morata delivers like many hope for.

5 hours ago, Unionjack said:

B..B..B..But we still got Bats n Giroud, Shirley one of those can give us 20 goals no?

Lool  lets hope they deliver. Giroud is a world cup winning striker without a goal or shot on target in the whole tournament, but he had goalscoring Griezmann and Mbappe to score the goals. We have willian, pedro and hazard. Lets hope they can help the team.

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

 

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

Another one:

 

[BlueLyon 9,359]

I will only be mad at Sarri if he caves in and plays experienced players just because reputation. 

Play young players and those who are actualy good. Simple. He gave Cho serious playtime so far and thats exactly what I want. If Willian and Pedro are shit, play CHO, dont play shit players over and over like Conte did.

If we had a breakthrough youth player, be it CHO or RLC (long shot) this season, then it would mean more than a fucking title. We won couple titles since 2000 and not a single english youth product in starting 11 since Terry.