Chelsea: Maurizio Sarri must decide what is worth losing his job over

Maurizio Sarri’s stubbornness is increasingly a sign of intransigence and insecurity rather than steadfastness. He has to decide what is most important to him before Chelsea drop any further.

The following is an executive-level summary of what is not working for Maurizio Sarri: 4-3-3 formation, his preferred XI, not using a striker, zonal marking, playing Eden Hazard as a false-nine, Jorginho, the passing circuits, playing out from the back, N’Golo Kante as box-to-box midfielder, squad rotation, substitution patterns, using two wide wingers, zonal marking specifically on set pieces, media relations.

Maurizio Sarri must decide which of those elements are worth losing his job over. If he accepts that he might see them under the heading “cause for termination of contract,” he should stay the course. Anything less intrinsically important should be the point of departure for his attempts to turn around Chelsea’s performance.

In the post-game press conference Sarri refused to take any responsibility for the failure of Chelsea’s tactics. He refused to acknowledge that the tactics had any weakness or impact on the result at all.

Yet barely an hour earlier, Jose Mourinho spoke about how Chelsea’s creative players like Willian and Eden Hazard need more freedom, and how constraining and predictable the team’s tactics are. Mourinho’s characteristic bluntness made the statement go viral and his history of success gave the statement added support. The irony of him talking about giving wingers more freedom made it trenchant. But he said nothing that Roy Hodgson, Marco Silva, Mauricio Pochettino, Ralph Hassenhuttl, Claude Puel, Travis Tyler, George Perry and now Unai Emery (among others) have known for months and demonstrated through their actions and words.

Sarri is at his time for choosing. He must decide what about his football defines him as a coach and what will lead him to some level of success at Chelsea.

If a 4-3-3 with Jorginho at the base of midfield and two wide wingers is the ultimate essence of “Sarrismo,” so be it. But he must then play with a true striker, even if that striker is Alvaro Morata; expand his squad usage within the Premier League and across competitions; empower the players to decide when to play out from the back and when Kepa Arrizabalaga can hoof the ball across midfield; and shift to man-marking on set pieces.

He cannot tolerate another day of Chelsea making crosses to no one in the centre of the box because Eden Hazard is acting like a fraudulent-nine more than a false-nine. He cannot have the Blues so robotically committed to playing out from the back that they give the ball away at the top of their defensive third, leading to a quick series of scoring opportunities on the counter, as Arsenal had in the 63′.

If, on the other hand, he feels he has absolutely no chance of succeeding with anyone in Blue other than the 14 players he trusts the most in the Premier League, then he needs to change what they are doing. Chelsea need new tactics and new formations. If he does not want to change from the 4-3-3, he can direct one winger to invert while the other stays wide. This will prevent the scenario we saw many times against Arsenal where the full-back was dribbling the ball with the same-side winger 10 yards in front of him – an unproductive opinion that feeds into the repetitive U-shaped passing circuits. The inverted winger will also open up new spaces when overlaid on the asymmetric full-backs, particularly given Marcos Alonso’s tendency to go towards the box.

Likewise, if those 14 players are the only key to success, then he needs to use them in their best positions. This means N’Golo Kante as defensive midfielder and Eden Hazard as No. 10. It also means understanding their capabilities and limitations. Not that any team should play 100% zonal marking, but certainly not this Chelsea team. When Laurent Koscielny shouldered in Arsenal’s second goal, five Chelsea players were within arms’ reach but none marked the Frenchman. If only that was an unusual occurrence this season.

We could go on with different permutations of what could change around a few things that stay the same.

The last two months have shown that the full bag of Sarri-isms are neither necessary nor sufficient for victory. Three of Chelsea’s last four goals have come from the edges of Sarri’s ideal state: two crosses from Callum Hudson-Odoi to Alvaro Morata against Nottingham Forest, and David Luiz’s Route One pass to Pedro against Newcastle.

If Maurizio Sarri insists on a mechanical application of his system he must decide what parts of that system are essential. Of course, to determine what is essential he might also have to decide if the system or the outcome is the end goal.

Already granted more transfers from the board and more cultish devotion from a subset of fans than any previous Chelsea coach he apparently thinks he can have it all. He is Veruca Salt on two packs a day. But Chelsea’s performance against Arsenal was enough that the only people still defending him are the ones packing their bags for Sarritown, Guyana. His bosses, if they haven’t already, will quickly perform the trade-off analyses their former banker will not.

Not everything is working at Chelsea right now. Some of it could, but only at the expense of others. If Maurizio Sarri is unable to make those judgments and act upon the rest, he will be left with nothing.