Maurizio Sarri is at the halfway point of his first season at Chelsea, with the Blues sitting uncomfortably in fourth place. Our writers grade his first 19 weeks, and offer their prognoses for his future.
Chelsea are leading a three-club race for fourth place in the Premier League, which is about the most tenuous position a new coach could find himself in. Maurizio Sarri needs to turn around the Blues’ form and momentum just to hold on, as they have a better chance of dropping than rising in the table. Here are our grades on the first half of his first season.
Kevin Peacock: B
Maurizio Sarri wasn’t this fan’s ideal replacement for Antonio Conte. Conte let himself and the fans down with the way he appeared to engineer his premature exit throughout last season. After that, and despite ending on an FA Cup high, Sarri’s arrival could only improve the mood in the dressing room.
Improve it did, and the Italian started the season very well in the hot seat, taking the team on a long unbeaten run. After “suffering without the ball” with Conte, Sarri’s keep-ball method of play seemed to sit well with the players. As Jermaine Jenas once learned, though, it’s not all about possession. The Chelsea board’s failure to once again strengthen the manager’s attacking options with a 20 goal per season striker has, as time has worn on, hindered Sarri.
Sarri’s inability to come up with something different when things are not going to plan has seen his credibility and grade fall backwards. It’s all very well keeping hold of the ball, but there has to be an end product. Perhaps the word that will be used most often to describe him here is: stubborn. He believes in his method and he believes in certain players to execute it. He doesn’t believe in playing the Chelsea youth, and he’s unshakable in that.
That’s not to say he won’t get it right. If he gets the players he believes suit the system then there’s every chance his grade could improve. In all fairness, it’s still early days.
Scott Brant: C-
Sarri is achieving the minimum expected of him, which is holding on to the top four. Anything less than that in the first season will be unacceptable.
I am going to leave all the tactical analysis to my colleagues, who all have a better understanding of it. I am going to attack the attitude of the players as seen by us, the fans. No matter how good or dominant a team is, the sense of urgency to win should always be present, and the Blues aren’t currently demonstrating that.
Qualifying for the Champions League in itself may be just enough to save his job. But Sarri will have until the end of the season, and unless his second half proves otherwise, the Italian manager will be gone. The proof is in the pudding, and halfway through the season, Sarri has an overachieving fourth-place team.
George Perry: A+
Maurizio Sarri is giving Chelsea exactly what they could have expected from him, which must be what they wanted, otherwise they would not have hired him. I can think of few managers in any sport who have such a small gap between what their records and contemporaneous words promised and what they produced in their first season.
Abhishek Pancholi: B-
Sarri has been given almost everything denied his predecessor. The club broke the bank for Jorginho, who is supposedly the key to Sarrismo and was Maurizio Sarri’s number one target. Sarri has also developed a cult of brain-dead zombies who salivate at every sideways pass and get possession percentages tattooed on their body.
But the results and performances on the pitch raise suspicions that the emperor is scantily clad and rapidly shedding clothes. Chelsea are marginally better off than last year and all the progress made by young players such as Ethan Ampadu and Andreas Christensen has been reset under Sarri. Teams find it too easy to pinpoint the weak links in his setup and he has struggled / refused to adapt while the team suffers with the ball.
Chelsea are are still in the top four, so he gets a B-. But it could all change with a couple of losses to the temporary residents of Wembley Stadium.
Travis Tyler: B-
When Sarri was hired, I said it felt a leap too large. Smart teams do not go straight from a defense-first culture and series of managers to an offense-first one. A transitional manager (like Unai Emery is at Arsenal) can help bridge the gap while keeping the squad clicking.
As such, I am not surprised to see Chelsea stuck in two minds. There has yet to be a true Sarrismo performance for a full 90. It has come in spurts and stumbles, fits and starts. I do not blame Sarri for that entirely as often the players simply do not seem to have the desire to play as quickly as the manager requires. Slow Sarrismo is simply worthless tika-taka, and that is something that has to be addressed.
Top four / Champions League is a must at Chelsea. If Sarri can do that, he passes this season.
Hugo Amaya: C-
Chelsea have been very mediocre this season. Despite all the hype of Maurizio Sarri’s “beautiful style of play” the team has not seen much of an improvement. In fact, the Blues are completely unbalanced and incapable of winning simple games, much less winning comfortably.
Sarrismo has been turned on its head already and the creator has no new answers as to how to fix it.
However, Chelsea are in the top four and alive in every other competitions available to them. But at the end of the season, when the team and the board realize that playing pretty ball isn’t really working, the Italian will get sacked. In truth, it’s only a matter of time.
The only way Sarri can stay is if he wins a cup and stays in top four. Otherwise, his performance will turn into a failing letter grade.