Maurizio Sarri sees the problems at Chelsea that some fans ignore

Reactions to the loss to Tottenham were the usual mix of overreaction versus underreaction. Maurizio Sarri sees Chelsea’s issues even if most ignore them.

A section of Chelsea fans would see someone calling the loss to Spurs a disaster and say that person is overreacting. It was the first loss all season and these things take time after all. Except the person saying that was Maurizio Sarri himself.

Chelsea has been seeing the same problems at least since the Burnley match. Almost every game since then, the Blues have started slow as teams slowly added to the blueprint of how to stop Chelsea. Mauricio Pochettino completed it and Sarri and Chelsea were very lucky the score line was not 5-0, 6-0, or 7-0.

Criticism of this team is well earned. Yes, it was the first loss of the season. But the time to criticize and improve is not after several losses. It must be constant because as Tottenham showed, someone will eventually capitalize in a big way. Sarri sees that as many fans put their heads in the sand and ignore the world.

Sarri did not like any part of the match. The offense did not press, the midfield did not press, and to say the defense defended would be laughable. It goes deeper than N’Golo Kante and Jorginho, Ross Barkley or Mateo Kovacic, Willian or Pedro, or Olivier Giroud or Alvaro Morata.

Chelsea barely improved throughout preseason. From Perth Glory to the Community Shield, everything stayed virtually the same. Sarri said it would take a few months to get where they needed to be. The squad seemingly beat that timeline as Huddersfield to BATE Borisov (13 games) the team appeared to be improving and reaching its heights.

But from Burnley till the loss to Spurs, Chelsea has struggled more and more each match. They won four times, drew once, and lost once in that time but all the while they began to regress. Tottenham may or may not prove to be rock bottom but all the issues came to a head in the match.

The loss to Tottenham was an embarrassment. Not because of who the opponent was, but because the result very well could have been a historic blowout. Now is not the time to say “give the squad time!” or “it is only the first loss!”. Now is the time to pick the issues apart and fix them. Sarri seems to see that even as a large part of the fan base is pretending the ship is still on course.

Sarri will show the exact type of manager that he is over December. David Luiz’s “performance” is droppable. End of. The balance in the front six players is off and there are seemingly few good solutions to it. And Tottenham effectively proved a pure zonal marking system is a thing of the past.

The manager sees the issues but has to fix something. Whether that is personnel or system does not matter. The imbalance got found out and there is no going back. Something has to change. That is not an overreaction by any means, it is merely an insight from the issues growing over time and finally showing themselves.