Maurizio Sarri’s first season in the Premier League is similar in many ways to Pep Guardiola’s. Sarri should have the same space to build his plan at Chelsea as Guardiola has at Manchester City.
As Manchester City romped to the title in extraordinary fashion last season, one could have been forgiven for thinking English football was about to turn a corner. Pep Guardiola had frequently been told he would have to adapt his style if he wanted to achieve glory in the world’s most competitive league. However, by the end of his second season, his side became the first to reach 100 points in a Premier League season, and were in the conversation among the Premier League’s greatest ever teams.
More importantly than the point total, at least to Guardiola, was how they achieved this outrageous feat. Manchester City did everything they could have hoped for, and they did it playing the Guardiola way. They religiously played out from the back, frequently had over 65% possession and employed a brilliant high-pressing system.
To do this he had to make unpopular decisions, such as shipping out club legend Joe Hart and persisting with John Stones even when there were large question marks about the Englishman. The City fans and the press told him he was getting it wrong, that he needed to change. But he ignored them.
This brings us to City’s opponent in matchweek 15: Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea.
Sarri is going through his first difficult spell as Chelsea manager following a 3-1 drubbing from Tottenham and then a poor 2-1 defeat to Wolves. Despite the glaring example of Guardiola’s trajectory in Manchester, Sarri is already being asked to change.
Now, this is not to suggest Sarri is at the same level as Guardiola. The Spaniard has won two Champions Leagues and seven league titles, whereas Sarri is yet to win a major honour.
However, this doesn’t mean his ideas should be treated with less respect. Guardiola himself said he watched every Napoli game, as he found them fascinating. He declared their football “a joy to watch” and said Sarri did “a fantastic job.” Arrigo Sacchi, the legendary AC Milan manager, spoke similarly, saying Sarri is “a genius.”
Sarri may not have won a major honour yet, but this is true of every manager at some point. If Pep Guardiola himself had started at Empoli before moving onto Napoli, one imagines he, too, would have struggled to displace the utterly dominant force that is Juventus.
So, if Maurizio Sarri is so brilliant, why are Chelsea not playing fantastically? Well, many have been arguing Sarri’s ideas are good but he needs to adapt his ways to the English game. Specifically, he needs to displace his trusty servant Jorginho so N’golo Kante can play his more familiar role of screening the back-four. Many pundits have joined Chelsea fans in calling for this change.
But this is not the solution. First, N’Golo Kante’s most successful club seasons have never come as a screen to a back-four. He played there for France in the World Cup. But his two best seasons, where he was pivotal in back-to-back title victories, came as part of a midfield pair where he had license to press higher up the pitch. Even his best performance of 2017/18 away at Atletico Madrid – which was also the club’s best showing of the season – had him playing slightly higher up the pitch with Tiemoue Bakayoko as the screen to the back-four. Admittedly, he is playing higher than he is used to this season. But he has never been a conventional screen to a back four.
That is somewhat besides the point, though. Asking Sarri to play a Kante-type player in front of the back-four should be out of the question to start with. A Sarri team cannot play the way he asks without a Jorginho-type player to generate attacks from deep.
Now this might sound stubborn and inflexible, but that is the way it has to be under Sarri. Guardiola had a whole season of failings and never once entertained the idea of changing his methods.
This desperation for change is something that is common when fans are not used to what they are seeing. Sarri, like Guardiola, is being criticised because the way he wants to play is not the norm for English football. In Spain, Diego Simeone often gets criticised because his football is the opposite of what one expects in La Liga. One imagines if Sarri were managing in Spain and Simeone in England, all questions about style would vanish for both men.
So again, why are Chelsea not playing brilliantly? The style is not the problem for Chelsea. Jorginho is not the problem for Chelsea. N’golo Kante is not the problem for Chelsea.
They are simply a team in transition. They are changing from a squad built to play a back-three and on the back foot to a team who use a back-four and play expansive football. If Pep Guardiola required three transfer windows to get his team to where it is, how can we expect Maurizio Sarri to do it in three months?
He is not without fault. His bizarre insistence on David Luiz and Willian perplexes most Chelsea fans, but there is nothing he can do about the other issues with the Chelsea squad. There is no proven goal scorer, he has a lack of options at full back and no world-class creators bar the magnificent Eden Hazard. So give the man time, believe in his vision.
This season will continue to be rocky, as it was always going to be. But given the resources to change the squad and the time on the training pitch to drill his ideas into the players, in a year’s time we may all laugh at the idea of Sarri being asked to change his methods.