There was much hope brought in alongside Maurizio Sarri. His first Chelsea preseason has been disappointing and that is okay to admit.
In the nicest way possible, some managers have cults. Fans and players that will defend them no matter what. Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola, and Diego Simeone are some of the most noticeable. But Maurizio Sarri has his own cult that pushed for his signing at Chelsea and are still pushing for him on all fronts.
That has its place of course. Chelsea needs a group that pushes patience with the manager for once. Sarri is a slow starter when he arrives at clubs and if fans can get past that hump, things will be good again. But the same people preaching patience will also ignore or lambaste the very real issues Chelsea is facing right now. Chelsea, both the club itself and the fans, needs both sides.
It is okay to look at Chelsea’s preseason and call it what it was; a failure. From Perth Glory to Olympique Lyonnais, the Blues were simply not good enough. One win from five (do not count the International Champions Cup’s need for a winner on penalties) is terrible. The Blues ended preseason with one win (Perth), three draws (Inter Milan, Arsenal, and Lyon) and one loss (Manchester City). In that time they scored just three goals and conceded four times.
That is bad. There is no way around it. What is worse is that the Blues did not improve from the Perth match until the Lyon match. Even then, the only improvement was defensively. The defense still looks disorganized and unsure in this new, narrow, offside trap style. The offense is just as wasteful and as lacking in creativity as they have been for all of 2018. The fitness level and intensity plummets off a cliff around the half hour mark every time. Those are very real concerns that Sarri, the club, and the fans should have and be looking to address.
But it is also just preseason. And a preseason with a ton of World Cup players gone till late, a lack of signings, and a general uncertainty about things. Sarri arrived late and had very little time to put things together. Given his short time, it is still possible to see the slight changes he has made to the side, even if they are not working yet.
Sarri will have learned many valuable lessons from this preseason. Primarily, he will have learned which players can fit into his system and where. Or where they cannot fit. Players like Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ethan Ampadu have shined. But the centerback combo of Antonio Rudiger and David Luiz? Not so much.
The season starts on Saturday and Sarri has already said the side is months away from being very good. That makes sense given this preseason. And that is okay. But he has to earn that patience in the meantime.
Meanwhile, both sets of fans need to see where the other is coming from. Sarri and this side needs to show more to earn patience. But there have been outside circumstances that have hampered that. Whatever happened in preseason, good or bad, becomes meaningless when the ball is kicked off against Huddersfield. Then, the real work begins.