The Sarri Thread

[Fulham Broadway 17,313]

I remember the same allegations levelled at Pep during his first season - however the difference being he was given unlimited cash -£150million on fullbacks, then gets LaPorte as well etc. I'm also seeing a pattern of just employing 2 strikers in the full squad. Pretty sure Conte and Sarri would prefer a minimum of 3.

So it comes back to our board in a way, in terms of cash flow for managers. What they do is just get another gaffer in, which masks the problems. Some blame with allowing sari to bring Jorginho when we have the best defensive midfielder in the World already. 

Talking of which if Jorginho starts against Citeh I am going down the pub ay half time... 

[Vesper 30,175]

Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri is tactically stubborn and lacks a Plan B

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/chelsea/chelsea-boss-maurizio-sarri-is-tactically-stubborn-and-lacks-a-plan-b-a4010166.html

 

Maurizio Sarri is starting to discover what it feels like when the honeymoon period as manager of Chelsea is over.

It would be foolish to suggest Sarri’s job is under threat after just five months, although Luiz Felipe Scolari and Andre Villas-Boas might suggest otherwise. However, the Italian needs to add a new game-plan to his repertoire sooner rather than later.

After a very promising start to life as Chelsea coach, there is more evidence that opponents have figured out his tactics.

The results alone make grim reading: since winning their first five Premier League fixtures, Chelsea have added just four more in the next 10. They should have secured a fifth last night but missed a host of chances at 1-0 and then gifted Wolves two sloppy goals.

Sarri questioned his players’ poor reaction after Nino Espirito Santo’s men drew level, intimating they were solely at fault for the defeat.

“We were suddenly another team,” he said. “Without the right distances, our football, I don’t know why.

“I am really very worried, not for the result but for the fact we didn’t react to the first goal. We didn’t react at all, so I am really very worried for this.”

However, all those connected with Chelsea might think Sarri could have done more to inspire a comeback.

Sarri is so committed to his ‘vision’ of play that he will not alter from it one bit. This means his substitutions are merely like-for-like rather than  anything out of the ordinary.

snip

[kellzfresh 7,229]

Why Chelsea are still adapting to Sarri as Man City approach footballing nirvana

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46442319

Quote

Three of Chelsea's six league titles have come in their first season under a new manager, which is a feather in the cap for the club's HR department and explains why hopes were high this season when they went unbeaten in their first 12 matches.

Maurizio Sarri is the first Premier League coach to avoid defeat in his opening dozen matches yet they head into Saturday's home game with Manchester City 10 points adrift of the reigning champions.

Pep Guardiola is attempting to win his ninth league title in his 11th season as a top-flight manager but even he couldn't win the Premier League in his first season with City.

If the modern breed of super-managers is defined by specific stylistic approaches then frankly it makes sense that they can't just bowl into a new club, click their fingers and expect the players to adapt immediately. We've come a long way since Bruce Rioch's blueprint when he was appointed Arsenal manager in 1995: short hair, don't be late, wear a tie, be polite and get married.

Even so, it only took the Manchester City players a year of adaption under Guardiola before they began to exert the sort of full-spectrum dominance enjoyed by Juventus in Serie A, the very team who repeatedly prevented Sarri from landing the league title with Napoli. He ended his three years there with the best points-per-game rate of any Napoli manager in Serie A history (2.27) but this was only enough for two second places and a third.

There is a well-documented amount of mutual respect between Sarri and Guardiola but the former must know that his good start at Stamford Bridge has not reduced the size of the challenge he faces.

The underlying numbers of both clubs support the case that Guardiola is approaching footballing nirvana at City while Chelsea are still adjusting to their new manager's demands.

Using Opta's sequences model we can see that they are the only two teams this season to record more than 300 possession sequences of 10 or more passes, considerably more than the other teams in the "big six".

But while a third of City's have ended in a shot or a touch in the penalty area (defined as a build-up attack), only 18% of Chelsea's have, not only a lower proportion than City, but also Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham as well.

In simple terms, City's domination of the ball offers epoch-defining penetration, while Chelsea are on the ball a lot, but too often without much end product.

Team	10+ pass sequences	Sequences ending with touch in box
Correct as of 3 December
Manchester City	347	112	32.3%
Arsenal	206	49	23.8%
Liverpool	254	53	20.9%
Tottenham Hotspur	184	36	19.6%
Chelsea	328	60	18.3%
Manchester United	155	20	12.9%

Debate about Chelsea's current approach caught fire after they were outclassed by Tottenham at Wembley in matchweek 13, with Sarri's subsequent criticism of N'Golo Kante dominating headlines.

Chelsea's new manager has installed his own Neopolitan operating system in midfield in the form of Jorginho, which has pushed Kante out to the right, as evidenced in the map below.

The former Leicester man has seen a bump in the number of touches per 90 minutes he is making on the right flank but has dropped by 12.4 in his own half.

Once master of the defensive half, Kante is now running a new business elsewhere that may not be entirely suitable, despite a pair of assists that matches the combined total from his first two seasons at the club.

For his part, Jorginho has already recorded the third and fourth highest number of successful passes ever made in a Premier League game (behind two Guardiola players from last season, which partly explains why he was so pained that the Italy international chose Stamford Bridge over Etihad Stadium in the summer) but without a cutting edge Jorginho's work will go unrewarded.

Even worse, if pressed effectively - as Dele Alli did for Tottenham last month - Jorginho can effectively become a weak link, the dynamo in a wheel that won't turn. [Incidentally, more players have recorded 100 or more successful passes in a single game in 2018-19 than all Premier League campaigns between 2003-04 and 2010-11 combined].

Most successful passes in a Premier League game
Date	Player	Opponent	Successful passes
04/03/18	Ilkay Gündogan (Man City)	Chelsea	167
31/03/18	Fernandinho (Man City)	Everton	164
23/09/18	Jorginho (Chelsea)	West Ham United	162
26/08/18	Jorginho (Chelsea)	Newcastle United	158

Ultimately, football philosophy can only be reflected on at leisure if that team is scoring enough goals and in Alvaro Morata and Olivier Giroud, Sarri has a pair of strikers who have scored a combined six times from 54 shots, while Eden Hazard has not scored in the league since the start of October, a relative drought his expected goals overperformance had hinted was in the post.

Guardiola, in contrast has both Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling on eight goals already, and though he inherited those two, just as Sarri has Morata and Giroud, the difference is obvious.

Dries Mertens scored 46 league goals in Sarri's final two seasons at Napoli and finding or buying someone who can replicate this threat is the next big task in Sarri's inbox.

 

[Tomo 21,751]

23 hours ago, Jason said:

Nobody is asking Sarri to make a 180 degrees turn on his football but if he can't make minor tactical adjustments to make things work for the time being, then he won't last very long. You know well enough that inflexibility won't get managers far in the Premier League and Sarri is certainly showing that now, with his tactics and team selection. Plus, where is this Sarri-ball that we have heard so much of? Where is the cohesive, combination play in the attacking third? We've barely seen it. Only thing we have gotten from his football so far is more possession and passes but really, what's the point of that when we don't create enough or proper goalscoring chances? It was the same under Conte and Mourinho. And seeing us bossing some of these smaller teams is not really different to what we saw under Conte, Mourinho etc as we tended to dominate those games as well in the past.

Sorry for the late reply, i agree on minor adjustments but the base of his philosophy has to remain the same, we signed up for it so telling him to adapt is like signing Ederson and telling him not to use his passing range.

As for the play side of it, we are definitely a lot better in possession than any point under Conte or Jose, for all our other faults right now we are still playing out of the back well and having 65% ish possession per game. As for the overall play of patterns and combinations in my opinion it's largely right now down to the lack of pre season and time on the training pitch, since September we haven't had a free midweek which means fuck all if any training time (high match turnovers mean training is basically warmdowns) which is a killer when trying to learn a new system. Imagine if say you were taking regular exams that you've only just took on but your schedule means little to no time to revise, your performance will slow down after a while.

In a way Bournemouth knocking us out could be a blessing because as much as a semi final is nice, we desperately need some time on the training pitch to aid us in the home straight.

[Jase 43,479]

1 hour ago, Tomo said:

Sorry for the late reply, i agree on minor adjustments but the base of his philosophy has to remain the same, we signed up for it so telling him to adapt is like signing Ederson and telling him not to use his passing range.

As for the play side of it, we are definitely a lot better in possession than any point under Conte or Jose, for all our other faults right now we are still playing out of the back well and having 65% ish possession per game. As for the overall play of patterns and combinations in my opinion it's largely right now down to the lack of pre season and time on the training pitch, since September we haven't had a free midweek which means fuck all if any training time (high match turnovers mean training is basically warmdowns) which is a killer when trying to learn a new system. Imagine if say you were taking regular exams that you've only just took on but your schedule means little to no time to revise, your performance will slow down after a while.

In a way Bournemouth knocking us out could be a blessing because as much as a semi final is nice, we desperately need some time on the training pitch to aid us in the home straight.

Maybe you are right that the lack of time on the training pitch is causing the issues that we are seeing now BUT that is no excuse for Sarri to continue picking under-performing players or players are so obviously not fit for his system. If he continues to do that, then how is he going to get the players to play the way he wants us to play? Our squad isn't perfect but there are definitely some players more suited to his style than others. That is one point and the second thing here is, it points to a lack tactical flexibility on his part. No one is asking him to sacrifice his football but is he really that stubborn or blind to make minor adjustments to ensure things work for the time being without compromising his football? There have been comparisons between Sarri's struggles now with Guardiola but has he not looked at Guardiola's mistakes in his first season and tried to not make them here? Could even throw in Klopp's initial period into the equation here. It certainly feels like he's showing the same naivety that Guardiola and Klopp showed when they first came to England. 

[Tomo 21,751]

26 minutes ago, Jason said:

Maybe you are right that the lack of time on the training pitch is causing the issues that we are seeing now BUT that is no excuse for Sarri to continue picking under-performing players or players are so obviously not fit for his system. If he continues to do that, then how is he going to get the players to play the way he wants us to play? Our squad isn't perfect but there are definitely some players more suited to his style than others. That is one point and the second thing here is, it points to a lack tactical flexibility on his part. No one is asking him to sacrifice his football but is he really that stubborn or blind to make minor adjustments to ensure things work for the time being without compromising his football? There have been comparisons between Sarri's struggles now with Guardiola but has he not looked at Guardiola's mistakes in his first season and tried to not make them here? Could even throw in Klopp's initial period into the equation here. It certainly feels like he's showing the same naivety that Guardiola and Klopp showed when they first came to England. 

But to play devils advocate he could also be looking at how they have both been rewarded for sticking to their process and not panicking, Pep took the short term hit to implement his style and as soon as he got more suitable players to go along with a the rest being a year into his training he's arguably created the best PL team ever, Klopp looked like he was neglecting his defense and keeper at one point (and maybe to an extent he was) but he waited for suitable players and now has probably the best in both positions in the league.

Re subtle changes, I think (am trying to convince myself) that he is slowly looking at things in that regard, he took Alonso off vs Fulham  (and i think Zappa might start with Azpi LB on Saturday to help combat Mahrez cutting in) and he's rotated Jorginho off which is the one thing i thought he would never do, the Christmas period will tell us a lot either way.

[DDA 9,938]

6 hours ago, Tomo said:

he's arguably created the best PL team ever,

United 99. This City team isn't even close to that United team, yet!!!

[Johnnyeye 7,509]

1 hour ago, DDA said:

United 99. This City team isn't even close to that United team, yet!!!

agree, City will always remain in the shadow of United no matter how good a team they are.

[Jase 43,479]

8 hours ago, Tomo said:

But to play devils advocate he could also be looking at how they have both been rewarded for sticking to their process and not panicking, Pep took the short term hit to implement his style and as soon as he got more suitable players to go along with a the rest being a year into his training he's arguably created the best PL team ever, Klopp looked like he was neglecting his defense and keeper at one point (and maybe to an extent he was) but he waited for suitable players and now has probably the best in both positions in the league.

I would argue that Guardiola and Klopp at least got the offensive side of the team work for them and that despite both having to also play tons of games, like us this season. So, maybe the lack of training time isn't really an excuse. 

9 hours ago, Tomo said:

Re subtle changes, I think (am trying to convince myself) that he is slowly looking at things in that regard, he took Alonso off vs Fulham  (and i think Zappa might start with Azpi LB on Saturday to help combat Mahrez cutting in) and he's rotated Jorginho off which is the one thing i thought he would never do, the Christmas period will tell us a lot either way.

You're optimistic there. Alonso played poorly against Fulham, only logical for the manager to sub him off. Jorginho has been playing a lot, for us and Italy, and again, only logical that Sarri rotates him with Fabregas. Sarri hasn't any tactical adjustments to the opposing team with his team selection.

[Tomo 21,751]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

I would argue that Guardiola and Klopp at least got the offensive side of the team work for them and that despite both having to also play tons of games, like us this season. So, maybe the lack of training time isn't really an excuse. 

 

Pep maybe but Klopp had some beyond miserable performances and runs of results for his first two seasons, remember those three home defeats in a row?

4 hours ago, DDA said:

United 99. This City team isn't even close to that United team, yet!!!

I disagree, United may have been more successful trophy wise but the sheer consistency City are displaying is insane.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

3 hours ago, Tomo said:

Pep maybe but Klopp had some beyond miserable performances and runs of results for his first two seasons, remember those three home defeats in a row?

I disagree, United may have been more successful trophy wise but the sheer consistency City are displaying is insane.

IMO Chelsea 2004-09, United 1999 and 2008, Arsenal Invincibles would wipe the floor with this city lot. Probably Liverpool at their peak too. 

What people dont see is how shit City is in europe. They might do well in england, because their depth due to crazy money is insane. Only one that cant be replaced are Ederson and Fernandinho. They have like two strong 11s. Just crazy depth quality. Its not that hard then to win vs burnleys with ease. Secondly, top teams in pl are far from great. Liverpool is only one that is in some decent shape and they have given city a spanking before. In CL though, city is nothing special. 

When we had strong squad (or United), semifinals were constantly there. City struggles because in europe, teams are actualy strong and tacticaly apt, Guardiola doesnt have plan b and he will get smacked in knockout stages again. 

The PL is far from great. Its true however that City is probably most consistent team in PL history. But put them in 2005, they might win all games against smaller sides (something we or united got burned sometimes) but they would also lose to all england top 4 teams in 2005. 

[BlueLyon 9,359]

On our side, why the hell are we so inconsistent?

We had great start with Conte, then dropped. We had great start of 2014/15 with Mou, then dropped. We also had very good start with Sarri, but now we play much worse. 

Obviously Sarriball will take two seasons to truly work, but its bad that we played better two months ago than we play now, when it should be the other way around. Players cant be tired already, so what is it? Just a shit attitude or?

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

Sarri on how you beat a team like Manchester city...

"I don't know, against Guardiola, I've lost every match, so you'd have to ask somebody else"

[Special Juan 28,141]

Great words.

[Johnnyeye 7,509]

35 minutes ago, xPetrCechx said:

Sarri on how you beat a team like Manchester city...

"I don't know, against Guardiola, I've lost every match, so you'd have to ask somebody else"

this made me laugh

[mccg 1,528]

Maurizio Sarri says Chelsea are suffering from 'blackouts'

ffs stop drinking before game then lol . Maybe Sarri is 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/11574003/maurizio-sarri-says-chelsea-are-suffering-from-blackouts

[Ledg 643]

''Blackouts" is the new "suffering without the ball". 

[mccg 1,528]

Breakdown: Wolves expose Chelsea’s Sarri-ball flaws with equalizer

https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2018/12/7/18130310/wolverhampton-wanderers-chelsea-equalizer-analysis-tactics-breakdwon-sarriball-sorryball

Aload of balls

[Tomo 21,751]

2 hours ago, BlueLyon said:

IMO Chelsea 2004-09, United 1999 and 2008, Arsenal Invincibles would wipe the floor with this city lot. Probably Liverpool at their peak too. 

What people dont see is how shit City is in europe. They might do well in england, because their depth due to crazy money is insane. Only one that cant be replaced are Ederson and Fernandinho. They have like two strong 11s. Just crazy depth quality. Its not that hard then to win vs burnleys with ease. Secondly, top teams in pl are far from great. Liverpool is only one that is in some decent shape and they have given city a spanking before. In CL though, city is nothing special. 

When we had strong squad (or United), semifinals were constantly there. City struggles because in europe, teams are actualy strong and tacticaly apt, Guardiola doesnt have plan b and he will get smacked in knockout stages again. 

The PL is far from great. Its true however that City is probably most consistent team in PL history. But put them in 2005, they might win all games against smaller sides (something we or united got burned sometimes) but they would also lose to all england top 4 teams in 2005. 

Maybe they would get the better of City in head to heads, but as you alluded to in your last paragraph they would wipe the flaw with all of us in terms of flattrack bullying. It was actually failure to master that side of things which was a big part of why United beat us to it three times on the spin (and even the year we got it back was due to an unprecedented 6/6 vs the Red rivals) and City are even more ruthless than Fergie's United.

[manpe 10,861]

 

 

At 11:10 he talks about Alonso vs. Emerson and he brings out that we could have trouble in set-pieces without Alonso... So what do we think about that? How valid reason is it?