Chelsea: Maurizio Sarri managed to rotate without resting overworked Blues

Maurizio Sarri played an unusual squad and formation to face Leicester on Sunday. Chelsea’s XI made little sense for such a meaningless game, as Sarri still relied on his most-used players.

Detecting the patterns in Maurizio Sarri’s management is a quick and easy task. A few hours on TransferMarkt and a few hours on YouTube last summer told Travis and me much of what we needed to know and could expect from the season ahead. If you’ve been reading us since last May, hopefully nothing about Chelsea has caught you by surprise other than just how by-the-book paint-by-numbers dime-store-dress-pattern it has all been.

Understanding why Maurizio Sarri so devoutly adheres to those patterns is a more difficult task, which makes it that much harder to make sense of the rare deviations.

Sarri broke some of his patterns for Chelsea’s Premier League finale against Leicester City. He named Davide Zappacosta to a Premier League starting XI for the first time this season, and Willy Caballero for the first time not related to a dust-up with Kepa Arrizabalaga. Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ross Barkley started together for the first time in the Premier League this season, their last time sharing a starting XI being on December 13 in the final Europa League group stage match against MOL Vidi. And with the unusual XI came the first deviation from the 4-3-3 this season, organizing the players in a  4-2-3-1.

On the surface, starting Zappacosta makes sense. Cesar Azpilicueta deserves a day off. He has played more minutes this season than any outfield player. His form was patchy at times this season as fatigue accumulated while his commitment and effort never wavered. Perfect attendance is no more laudable in the Premier League than it was back in primary school.

But Zappacosta’s appearance did not relieve Azpilicueta. Azpilicueta was instead the centreback against Leicester. He played alongside David Luiz, who has the third-most minutes on the team.  Andreas Christensen was presumably only partially fit after the Europa League semifinal, and obviously Gary Cahill could not play a barely-contested fixture because reasons.

Jorginho, the outfield player with the second-most minutes, also couldn’t rest and relax for a meaningless game. Mateo Kovacic is the only other person Maurizio Sarri has trusted at the base of midfield, but he was on the bench.

Maurizio Sarri has spoken several times this season about the need to rest Eden Hazard. Sarri has explained some of his lineup decisions in the context of not overtaxing Hazard. Even so, Hazard still had the sixth-most minutes this season.

Of the five above him, two are injured and the other three played the meaningless contest against Leicester City.

Perhaps we should be thankful Sarri knew he needed to rest Hazard or else he might be with Antonio Rudiger and N’Golo Kante right now. But if Hazard needed that much enforced rest, why not Azpilicueta, Luiz, Jorginho, Rudiger and Kante? Do these players not accumulate as much load as Hazard does in a game, or is Hazard’s threshold so much lower than theirs? Or, perhaps, is Hazard more worthy of protection than the other five, three of whom are defenders doing the donkey work and one of whom Sarri thinks is “not technical enough?”

We know Sarri thinks Jorginho is absolutely vital to all things Sarriball, but even r******s get tired. Unless, of course, Sarri is acknowledging that Jorginho really doesn’t move or do all that much during games.

While Maurizio Sarri rotated, he did not rotate the players who needed it most. The game was pointless enough to bring on Caballero, Zappacosta, a new midfield pairing and a new formation, but still important enough to push his most-used players for another 90 minutes.

A large part of this is how thoroughly Maurizio Sarri stripped Chelsea of options this season. Sarri overplayed two centrebacks and exiled two others, leaving a right-back as his only remaining centreback by the season finale.

By having a simultaneously narrow and inflated conception of what he wants at the base of midfield, only Jorginho can play there. Even though Mateo Kovacic was available, Sarri may have been so insecure about the new formation and having Loftus-Cheek and Barkley together for the first time in the league that he needed Jorginho in the squad for some sense of security.

Sarri recognized the opportunity to rotate, but without knowing why rotation is important and why coaches do such things, he did not accomplish the main purpose of doing so.

How many times have we come to that conclusion over the course of this season? Chelsea’s pantomime manager sees what other coaches do and copies “what” without arriving at it via why and how. The results are all these muddled mediocrities and half-measures.

Only Sarri could rotate his squad and his formation on the final day of the season and still give his remaining uninjured most-used players 90 minutes while not debuting the academy player on the bench.

Fortunately, Maurizio Sarri will have a proper preseason this summer. That will give him a chance to figure all this out, and you won’t have to endure another season of articles like this. So I’m told.