Chelsea: Maurizio Sarri needs freedom Pep, Klopp had to develop a team

Maurizio Sarri not only needs time to train Chelsea in his style, he needs room for the team to make mistakes along the way. If the club force him to water down his system this season, they will only delay the finished product.

Maurizio Sarri has very little risk of falling into the same trap as his predecessor. Barring a miracle only a few steps this side of Leicester City, Chelsea are not winning the Premier League this season. Sarri, then, only needs to avoid the same trap that eventually catches every Chelsea coach: not instantly gratifying the board’s trophy-lust.

He and the board, then, need to come to an understanding not just about their mutual expectations, but how Sarri will go about achieving them. The more leeway Sarri has in his first season to implement his system – even at the cost of a few games – the less time Chelsea will have to wait overall to see the results – both points and style points – they hired him to produce.

Manchester City and Liverpool offer the template Chelsea could choose to follow. Neither Pep Guardiola nor Jurgen Klopp delivered a finished product, let alone the end goal, in their first season. In 2016/17, while Chelsea adopted the 3-4-3 and romped to the title, Manchester City seemed bogged down by Guardiola’s dogmatic commitment to his style of play. Guardiola appeared unwilling to make any concessions for his players or the Premier League. He was going to have City play the way he had Barcelona and Bayern Munich play, come hell or high water or Aleksandr Kolarov. Guardiola even looked on the verge of a Jose Mourinho-style meltdown in several wild-eyed post-game interviews.

But City did not overreact. They gave Pep time and space to be Pep. They let him use his first season for education, taking the hit in his first season to achieve maximal impact in his second. Clearly it worked.

The club also outfitted him with new players. His first season showed how the system could work, but it also showed how the system needed the right players to work. As a result, City had 16 players in each season with over 1,000 Premier League minutes. But only eight of those players had over 1,000 minutes in both seasons. Among the regulars in 2017/18 were new arrivals Bernardo Silva, Benjamin Mendy, Ederson, Danilo and Kyle Walker.

Had Pep Guardiola – perhaps under pressure from Manchester City – watered down his tactics in his first season, two different outcomes could have occurred in his second season. First, it may have prolonged the learning curve. Players – like any students – need a certain amount of time at intensity to learn. A lighter courseload may have required 1.5 – 2 seasons to achieve the same effect. This could have shifted the Premier League title race last season, or at least reduced Manchester City’s historic accomplishments.

Second, a “good enough” season could have allowed Manchester City to think they did not need those additional players. If Pep Guardiola could achieve a sufficient amount by playing Pep-lite tactics with Bacary Sagna, Claudio Bravo and Aleksandr Kolarov, why spent so much money for the seemingly marginal return of the full Pep experience with a full roster of Pep-approved players?

Much the same reasoning applies to Liverpool. Over the three seasons with Jurgen Klopp the players’ ability to maintain their gegenpressung has increased from partial games for part of the season to 90 minutes per game throughout Premier League and Champions League campaigns. Klopp kept Liverpool on the front foot despite his defensive issues in the early seasons, and eventually Liverpool repaid him with Virgil van Dijk. Last season Klopp finally had the players he needed, and he had them playing the way he promised years before. Faith rewarded.

Chelsea had the opposite scenario and took the opposite approach with Antonio Conte. Conte was pragmatic by nature, perhaps fatally so. He prided himself on his ability tailor the best suit from the players he had. He worked backwards from the players to find the formations and lineups that would give his team the best chance to win. And he succeeded in this repeatedly. But his calls for new players may have rang hollow around Stamford Bridge as a result.

Why spend money when the coach just showed he can win a title with David Luiz on the back-line and Victor Moses as a wing-back? Antonio Conte’s actions – his success – may have undercut his words when he talked about Chelsea’s transfer needs.

With Maurizio Sarri, Chelsea are much closer to where Manchester City and Liverpool were in their first years with a new coach. Sarri’s philosophy – his philosophy about having a philosophy – is much closer to Guardiola’s and Klopp’s than Conte’s. Sarri is not pragmatic, he is not un sarto, he does not find ways to win. He implements Sarrismo, and then proceeds to win.

This means Chelsea must give him the time to do so, which may require them to endure a trophy-less season. They must be mindful of the time-at-intensity relationship as they weigh their goals for this season against their goals for the next few years. If they pressure him to make adjustments in pursuit of a few extra points, they will delay the full arrival of what they hired him to do. And that delay could push them beyond their limited capacity for patience, but would be well within their penchant for self-sabotage.

Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri must keep their sights set on qualifying for the Champions League this season. Any other goals or hopes are distractions that will distort expectations and derail strategies.

Next season, Chelsea can fret about Maurizio Sarri breaking his duck by winning a trophy. For now, they have to let him get that far.