Chelsea has struggled to back their managers in the past. They have opted to back Maurizio Sarri with Gonzalo Higuain after much hemming and hawing.
In Jose Mourinho’s last season with Chelsea, he asked for John Stones and Paul Pogba to refresh the squad. He got neither and for various reasons the team turned into a dumpster fire that he could not extinguish.
In Antonio Conte’s last season, the club sold Nemanja Matic out from under him. He wanted Romelu Lukaku and Alex Sandro among others. He got neither as the club ran out of gas in January and the players and board started to turn on him.
With the Gonzalo Higuain deal, Chelsea is giving Maurizio Sarri someone who he asked for, albeit six months later than the manager wanted. The club also backed Sarri with the Jorginho signing and they are attempting to with the pursuit of a deputy for the midfielder. The club is going all in on Sarri, for everything that it means.
The club was hesitant to bring Higuain in over the summer. The main reason is likely that he would have been a short term solution to a long term problem. The secondary reason was because the club wanted to back Alvaro Morata or Olivier Giroud. Neither has lived up to expectations and six months later the club is bending to Sarri’s desire for Higuain.
Sarri aside, the deal makes far less sense now than it did then. Higuain has less goals per minutes than Morata this season. The excuse is often that Milan cannot create as many chances as well as Chelsea. And while that is true, many construe creating chances with creating quality chances. Chelsea creates a ton of chances but very few of them are quality chances.
There is also the notion that because Higuain played with Sarri before that he understands the system better. Keep in mind Higuain played for Sarri years ago and only for one year. His “experience” with Sarrismo is only a few months greater than the current Chelsea squad’s.
Despite the deal making less sense now than it did in the summer, the board is backing Sarri on it all the same. They are taking a gamble that they did not take on Mourinho or Conte. If that gamble pays off, they are likely to consult Sarri more on future business. If it fails, then Sarri will be consulted less.
The board is taking this chance on Sarri because somewhere along the line they see an improvement over the current product. Sarri’s Chelsea has been good, but not great. Virtually since the Burnley game, the team has been stuck in a rut. That rut has become lethargic since winning against Manchester City. But there apparently is enough there to trust Sarri to come out the other end of this run for the better.
Higuain is an example of that. The club finding a deputy for Jorginho, as Sarri has often publicly asked for, will be another medal to pin on his chest. The club is gambling on Sarri in a way they chose not to for Mourinho or Conte. The hope is that it will pay off, but only time will tell.