Chelsea Tactics and Transfers: Someone has to change, but who goes first?

The next month or so will define Maurizio Sarri’s entire reign at Chelsea FC. Whether he’s able to grow and change or perish is the question.

The late Stephen Hawking once said “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.” He wasn’t speaking about Maurizio Sarri and Chelsea FC, obviously, but his question does cut to the will he / won’t he debate at the club right now. Both sides of this debate need to change for the club to get healthy and break from the despicable drivel we’ve been forced to sit through for several weeks.

Chelsea need to adapt to change. They need to learn that at some point all this firing of managers is not healthy and has held the club back when they should have launched themselves even further forward.

Of the new clubs to gain prominence since the turn of the millennium Chelsea are still the highest profile, though Manchester City are about equal now. Winning the Champions League should have catapulted Chelsea into the highest tiers of global football. Instead, the club has continued with its small-minded and overly aggressive attitude towards hiring and firing. This has set back any hopes of ascending to the level of Juventus, Bayern Munich and Barcelona.

Hilariously, though, the most recent man to test Chelsea’s ability to do this is suffering from a rather similar issue. Maurizio Sarri has been so doggedly dedicated to his style of play that he’s locked the doors to the possibility of change or evolution, and now he, too, is hurting the team.

For all those buffoons who suggest that it worked so well at Napoli, I want to say thank you. Thank you for mentioning a totally irrelevant and useless fact during this conversation.

What Sarri did worked at Napoli where he had Jorginho, Allan and Marek Hamsik in midfield, not Jorginho, N’Golo Kante and the party of three that is Mateo Kovacic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ross Barkley. The suggestion that because it worked there it should work here is so ridiculous I don’t want to talk about it anymore. So we’re done.

The only thing Sarri proved at Napoli was that he had the ability and intelligence to think of a system that worked in a counterintuitive method to the rest of his league. In a league that is slow he chose to play quickly. In a league where three or four touches are common he chose to play with one and two. Where counterattacking and defensive nous is generally thought of as the way forward, he built a system to counter that by keeping the ball in his opponent’s half.

What I am disturbed by is the square peg and round hole attitude he seems to have taken towards the Premier League. It stinks from its lack of research and respect. Yes, the strategy worked in Italy, a primarily slow and defensive league. The Premier League, being a primarily attacking and forward-moving league, is obviously very different.

What is shocking is how Sarri seemingly wants to play a system designed for another league and die at the altar of it. His inability to change and adapt is ridiculous. At this point it is coming off as peculiarly lacking in intelligence for a man whom, by all accounts, is intelligent.

But why did he not study the Premier League and invent a creative style that would work for it as he did with Serie A? Inventing a new tactic would have shown just how good his coaching ability and tactical nous are. But to bash the very astute and well-financed teams of the Premier League over the head with his ill-fitting tactical system is silly.

That, then, raises the dispositive questions: Should Chelsea resist the urge to change themselves and change the manager? Is Sarri just not the right man? Were they wrong and does he truly possess no ability to adapt and evolve? Was his intelligent, forward-thinking, attacking style of play actually a droll, boring and medieval stupid thing?

Perhaps.

Chelsea FC cannot go on laughably changing managers at all times. They should have learned it when Pep Guardiola specifically said that was the reason he would not join the club, and thus Roman Abramovich would never have his “Barcelona in Blue” dream.

Maybe Maurizio Sarri should just be the change himself and show he is as smart as many believe he is. He could create a style that is actually “tailored” to the Premier League as opposed to Serie A. This would be a refreshing break from how Chelsea are spending this season irritatingly smashing “Sarriball” into the faces of everyone in the division like some sort of bat trying to escape the attic.

Sarri could have proven himself to be a great sarto and actually built a system for the players he has as opposed to the ones he used to have. Why not be more like Antonio Conte? Sarri could have followed up on how Conte hilariously turned Victor Moses into the best right wing back in Europe and Cesar Azpilicueta into a clone of Fabio Cannavaro. Conte found a way to turn David Luiz into a great defender as opposed to schoolboy. Antonio Conte il sarto demonstrated in two years an incredible knowledge of four different tactical systems. He brought to bear a library of managerial knowledge and ability.

Should Chelsea just not have fired Antonio Conte and let him do his job? Now you see! They should have just let Conte stay! Mindless fools at the helm of this club! They fired Conte for this!? Mindless, idiotic, bull. That’s what it is.

Sorry, I digressed. I am emotional.  It is my great flaw as a man and person.

The amount of change Chelsea need philosophically, tactically and administratively is something no single club should have to deal with. Yet Chelsea have managed to find it necessary in all three ways.

Many people will claim to know the answer. Cast them off, dear readers, because they know not of what they speak. They are just plump on self-confidence and lack actual footballing intelligence.

The answer is as muddied as the past, present and future of this football club. That is the saddest part about all of this.