The Sarri Thread

[Vesper 30,175]

1 hour ago, Mana said:

Community Shield is a glorified friendly. It's a preseason trophy, just like the Champions Cup (or whatever the name it's called). The real season starts when the PL starts, not the CS. So yes, Chelsea is the only undefeated team in Europe this season.

However, this quote was taken from a different thread, but I would like to discuss it here...

Until we win the league, or massively improve our squad in January, there's always going to be doom and gloom this season.

Why? We won yesterday but I'm still pissed off. No, not because we played crap and we were VERY lucky to get the win yesterday. 

It's because of:

...with this shite squad. We are 2nd in the league as well. But, we all know deep down, it's only a matter of time before we fall flat on our faces. Because we are not good enough. There's a reason why pundits are not calling us title contenders. Sarri is doing amazing wonders with this shite squad, way more than I predicted.

What would have happened, if we had a decent CF. A CB that is not as naive as Luiz. Better replacement for Willian and Alonso. We would be clearly challenging for the title. Our squad won't be as expansive as City, but 11v11 we could match them. The board fecked us up big time in the summer. The potential is there, but we are so limited right now.

I Think we are stuck this squad for the most part until amd if Eden leaves. I think Sarri and the board massively rate Luiz and Willian. Unless Pedro is bang on healthy amd if Sarri trusts Ampadu, I dont see other viable options. Alwthough I REALLY want CHO to get more playing time, he isn't a RW, so he isn't going to get any meaningful time in big games. If Hazard is injured its Willian at LW and Pedro or RLC at RW (with the 3 switching it up side to side. Cahill and (I hate to say it) AC have looked horrid at CB, so its Rudiger and Luiz or die, unless Amps slips in a wee bit. I am also resigned that Kante and of course Jorginho will always be 2 of our 3 MFers in all important games, with Kovacic fighting with Barkley and RLC (lesser for him) for the 3rd spot. Fullbacks will always be Alonso and Azpi, and CF will be Morata, backed up or rotated with Giroud.

Sink or swim that is the team. I have absolutely zero expectations we do much in January. Especially at CF, as the options that are viable (true proven upgrade) will all be over £100m, unless we somehow buy Cavani as a stopgap (if price is right I am all in).

I think the club is in financial lockdown for the most part until the Roman nightmare is sorted one way or another.

At least we are undefeated. Lets hope it continues and doesn't implode. Sarri has indeed worked miracles, but any decent manager with say 5, 6 great players can surely slice deep into our weak points eventually. Winning EL is going to be a really hard slog, as some great teams will surely drop down from CL.

I am just going to concentrate on one game at a time. Eden and CHO situs are ticking time bombs though, and need to be sorted ASAP. I have bad feeling we are going to get a right proper bollocksing by both. Let's hope not!

[Tomo 21,751]

5 hours ago, Mana said:

Until we win the league, or massively improve our squad in January, there's always going to be doom and gloom this season.

Why? We won yesterday but I'm still pissed off. No, not because we played crap and we were VERY lucky to get the win yesterday. 

You should be the most happy of us all because you had us down to finish closer to mid table than where we are now.

5 hours ago, Mana said:

...with this shite squad.

Shite? really? Flawed i'll give but shite?

5 hours ago, Mana said:

 There's a reason why pundits are not calling us title contenders.

For the same reason they didn't in 16/17 until it got to the point they would look too stupid if they carried on denying so, back that season they were panning the Pep/Jose title race narrative all summer so held on for as long as possible before begrudgingly admitting how spectacularly wrong they got it, while this summer it was all about how Liverpool's window is going to elevate them into a title race, give City a serious examination while both leave the rest trailing in their wake.

They will be even more determined to hold out on calling us title challengers for as long as they can this time because that will mean admitting they have made the same mistake twice (writing us off after a poor season).

[Vybz Kartel 1,613]

Since no one is going to say it I will. His football of late is bordering on some of the worst football under Conte. Pathetic game management from him of late. 

[Tomo 21,751]

11 minutes ago, Mana said:

There's still time you know. I recall last season we were around the top, only to fall? We can finish the season unbeaten, but still finish 6th. I'm hope to be proven wrong though.

If we are going to go with flawed, then it's seriously flawed. We don't have the players to cope with this system.

Lol. Don't compare 16/17 to this. There is a huge difference between that squad and this squad as explained many times before. You cannot compare the quality of Diego Costa to the cowardless Morata. The lack of goalscoring threat is the difference between winning the PL, and finishing out of the top 4.

I think today is the reason why they will continue to hold out us being title challengers.

And i bet at the start of that season you gave every reason under the sun as to why we couldn't challenge either.  And while we may have been better off up front back then, we are light years better than that team (personel wise) currently in both defence and especially midfield. 

I don't actually think we will win the league, but this squad isn't as bad as you/Conte make out.

[Tomo 21,751]

16 minutes ago, Mana said:

Problem with that is, and what you missed out, even though Conte's title winning squad was aging, most of those players fit in Conte's system. They were just about good enough for Conte's system to work.

That can't be said for Sarri's. We may have better players now (well, most), but they are not either good enough to play the system, too slow/limited, or playing in a different position that they are not used to. Morata, Willian, Alonso, Luiz, Giroud, Fabregas...even sadly Kante and Azpi are not doing well at the moment. We are relying more on Hazard now then the 16/17 season.

It's easy to say in hindsight that they fitted Conte's system, i bet if i told you after the 3-0 loss at Arsenal we would win the title with Moses as a wing back, Alonso, Cahill, Pedro playing key roles and even Matic resembling something of a footballer again you would have laughed. Out of all those players you listed (as not good enough) only 1 is a bonafide starter.

18 minutes ago, Mana said:

hen why are you making it out to be we are title contenders? We are thankfully 3rd, but we are miles from being title contenders.

The squad is kinda bad. Have you already forgotten our game last Thursday? (Yes we won, but thanks to luck) Today as well, wasn't good enough.

Im not making out per se, just saying we have been here before. And why are you cherry picking the rubbish games to peddle your side? I could counter that by saying remember Cardiff, Burnley and Bate (home)?

[Jase 43,479]

Okay, our squad are not perfect and we all can see the flaws but feel like some here are on a self-fulfilling prophecy mission, who never turn up when we win but do so when we don't win just to basically say "I told you so!".  

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

This team needs some serious time on the training pitch.  It's just not quick and sharp enough at the moment.  Unfortunately, we won't have a break in the fixtures until the new year.  

[Fernando 6,585]

5 hours ago, Mana said:

Problem with that is, and what you missed out, even though Conte's title winning squad was aging, most of those players fit in Conte's system. They were just about good enough for Conte's system to work.

That can't be said for Sarri's. We may have better players now (well, most), but they are not either good enough to play the system, too slow/limited, or playing in a different position that they are not used to. Morata, Willian, Alonso, Luiz, Giroud, Fabregas...even sadly Kante and Azpi are not doing well at the moment. We are relying more on Hazard now then the 16/17 season.

Then why are you making it out to be we are title contenders? We are thankfully 3rd, but we are miles from being title contenders.

The squad is kinda bad. Have you already forgotten our game last Thursday? (Yes we won, but thanks to luck) Today as well, wasn't good enough.

The squad is not good enough. We are overachieving once again. Winning the title is not expected. 

However we should be good enough to finish top 4. 

 

[Special Juan 28,141]

We were never title contenders, I don't think we were even mentioned solidly at the start of the season.

If we can get one trophy and finish top 4 it will of been a very good season, totally acceptable.

The squad needs investment, it's decent but not to the quality it should be. We are lacking a top quality CB to play alonside Rudiger because Luiz is very poor IMO. One area we fall short in is the wing back areas, and I know Alonso has signed a new deal but if we are really to challenge next season we need elite replacements on either side. A striker is an absolute MUST, not even up for debate, again an elite CF who does the dirty work and bangs them home for fun. As decent as Pedro and Willian are we need a quality right-sided player too.

We must back Sarri, if he can deliver what we are seeing now with this team he can achieve top things if he is given the right players.

[Sideshow Luiz 2,310]

Who from our usual starting XI and bench haven't been selected for International duty?  We have a lot of work to do on the training pitch.

 

[communicate 2,703]

I don't get it when people say that we have a shite squad. Even Sarri himself said although organization wise the team is still not good enough we are still winning and it is due to our player quality.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that United, pool, city and spurs has better squad than us,but our team is not bad. 

[OneMoSalah 8,886]

12 hours ago, communicate said:

I don't get it when people say that we have a shite squad. Even Sarri himself said although organization wise the team is still not good enough we are still winning and it is due to our player quality.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that United, pool, city and spurs has better squad than us,but our team is not bad. 

City definitely have a better squad, Liverpool a better first 11? I'd say its fair to say that, their squad isn't actually that impressive either but they have got experience on the bench in Milner, Stirrings, Shaqiri etc. Man United or Spurs have better players in certain positions than us in their first 11s but again questionable if they are actually a better team. 

Squadwise City are top dogs in that department. Liverpool second. Don't think United or Spurs squad is better than ours in all fairness, we lack a top CB, top RW and a top CF, add those three in and we'd be favourites for the league as well. The experience is there in the squad. Id say even then without those 3 players, we still have the third best squad in the country. 

 

[the wes 7,212]

tactical analysis of Chelsea's style of play under Maurizio Sarri

 

https://m.sportskeeda.com/football/tactical-analysis-chelsea-fc-under-maurizio-sarri?key=newsnow

 

Interesting reading

[Vesper 30,175]

We better be dropping £300 to £400m gross this January cuz that 4 window, 2 year transfer ban sure looks like its coming inbound. Summer 2021 would be next time we could buy anyone.

Big FUCK OFF to Marina et al. And to her defenders, I TOLD YOU SHE WAS SHIT. 

Roman needs to sell the club. Europe ban might also be part of punishment. It will take years to recover from this, as you can kiss Hazard goodbye for sure. Better fucking buy 2 wingers, a CF, 2 MF'ers, RB, LB and 2 CB's

Sell the deadweight ffs too. Unless you want to see Drinkwater and Moses starting games in 2020.

Also, to all the people who toss about charges of FM to any who dares to say sell or buy, that shit is so numpty as you fucking use it EVERY WINDOW.

At some point it's 'piss or get out the loo' time. You can't just let the shit back up window after window.

[Bosnian Blue 2,471]

He should try Zappa - Rüdiger - Azpi - Emerson with Kante sitting in front. 

[Vesper 30,175]

starting in 5 days we have 11 matches in just 34 days

with the shit rotation Sarri uses the team may be half dead by January 3rd

at least every one of them is against a shit team except for Shitty and away at Wolves (well also at Selhurst v Palace)

We REALLY need to win at least 9 of these, hopefully 10.

[Fernando 6,585]

I love Sarri but I don't understand why he keeps picking David Luiz. 

 

[DDA 9,938]

I am still yet to witness this 'SarriBall' that Napoli honour soo highly. 

Our pre-season looked soo promising and now it just seems like they all resort back into type. Donkeys.

[Jase 43,479]

This.

6 minutes ago, DDA said:

I am still yet to witness this 'SarriBall' that Napoli honour soo highly. 

We are controlling the possession/game and looking to attack more in games but have hardly seen any cohesive, well crafted combination play that we saw at Napoli.

[Vesper 30,175]

1 hour ago, Fernando said:

I love Sarri but I don't understand why he keeps picking David Luiz. 

 

Simple. He doesn't really trust youth and he also had never been truly burnt by Luiz to the point he lost a game and the team was humiliated by Luiz.

Now we find out if Sarri has, like we Bajans say, hard ears.

Hard ears dun hear, hard ears gun FEEL.