When Gonzalo Higuain does arrive at Chelsea, he’ll be a major boost for sure, but one can’t expect him to be the club’s savior. The Blues have some major issues to resolve, in all position groups, and no one single player can come in and fix all that is broken right now.
Beyond that Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri sees severe problems with his own team’s motivation, as he ranted about this topic after his side lost a crunch clash at Arsenal 2-0 on Saturday. Sarri said he wanted to begin his postgame media session with a message to his players, and he wanted to do it in his native tongue of Italian, so that the message was perfectly clear.
When translated to English he said:
“I have to say I’m extremely angry, very angry indeed. This defeat was due to our mentality, more than anything else. This is something I can’t accept. This group of players are extremely difficult to motivate.”
In a London derby with huge top four implications, Chelsea could muster just one shot on goal.
“This is not a team that is going to be well known for its battling qualities, but we need to become a team that is capable of adapting, possibly suffering for 10 or 15 minutes, and then playing our own football. Today we didn’t play our own football,” Maurizio Sarri continued.
Having won just two of their last five, the Blues are now just three points ahead of fifth-placed Arsenal and sixth-placed Manchester United in the table. At least one, but maybe two of these three teams are going to miss out on UCL qualification for next season due to what figures to be a really fierce battle for top four positioning from here until the end of the season.
Sarri wasn’t finished calling out his own team though. The Italian discussed how a new January transfer window addition might influence the club.
“You have to influence them, it could be about a new player coming in or one of the old heads taking control,” the Blues boss continued.
“I don’t think a player at this level can’t be afraid to face up to their responsibilities. The best thing that can happen is that the players and I talk very openly about what happens.
“I am the person responsible for the players and it is important for them to have the attitude, and if they can’t then maybe they shouldn’t be playing at this level.”
An astonishing press conference from Maurizio Sarri. Refused to speak English. Slated his players. Insisted they were not about battling or fighting. Spoke of their need to adapt, but not of his own.
I cannot see this playing out particularly well.— Dan Levene (@danlevene) January 19, 2019
This isn’t the first time Sarri has called out his team this season, and most likely it won’t be the last either.
In mid-December, after his side handed reigning champions Manchester City their first loss of the season, Sarri openly wondered why his team doesn’t get as amped up for playing the smaller teams as they do for the big boys.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.