Big match English Premier League, on Monday February 11th, 2019 between Manchester City vs Chelsea ended with a landslide defeat of the Blues 6-0.
The defeat at Etihad reaped a storm of scathing criticism and fans’ disappointment. A fan shortly after the match, tried to meet and talk with Sarri on the edge of the field.
Sarri then apologized, and the fan responded by saying “to them”, while directing Sarri to the stands of Chelsea fans at the Etihad Stadium. Fans were then caught on camera throwing away their fans’ membership cards.
In addition, the expression of fans’ anger was also marked by the many uses of “humiliation” and “disgrace” in the comments column on the Facebook fanpage of Chelsea Football Club.
Two words that mean shame and humiliation, refer to the amount of margin of defeat. Right, losing 2 or 3 goals, from a team like City, might be understandable.
But conceding 6 goals is a disgrace, commented a fan from Africa.
A fan expresses his feelings with hopeless. He responded to the post “it ended 6-0” by the admin on the club fanpage on Facebook. He wrote this, “Thanks to Chelsea football club for good memories, but enough is enough, I’ve made my mind to officially retire as a fan with immediate effect because I’m tired of heartbreaks, and I’m too young to die.
The Blues fans are really angry. For fans, defeat is natural, but losing by a margin of 6 goals from competing teams, it’s like opening the door to insults for clubs and fans. From the fans’ comments that review the causes of defeat in Manchester, the following points may be the trigger.
First, Sarri is considered not playing Ngolo Kante in his best position. Unlike Conte who played the French midfielder in the defensive midfield position in front of three defenders, Sarri actually pushed Kante to play more forward and wide. Sari then put Jorginho in Kante’s position as the pivot center.
The task of the former Napoli is to flow the ball into the midfield line in front of him, Willian on the right and Hazard on the left. Unfortunately, Jorginho is not a typical midfielder with good defense.
Secondly, the weak point of Chelsea’s game according to many fans is Jorginho. His appearance at the beginning of the arrival was full of records, recording the highest number of passes in EPL.
However, his performance began to decline since the end of 2018, with increasing playing minutes. Analysts say as, midfielder, Jorginho is not too fast, and especially not good at driving away the opponent’s attack before the ball enters the defender’s area. This role of the last two seasons was played perfectly by Kante.
Jorginho’s weakness was very evident when the Blues suffered a 2-0 defeat to Arsenal and were slaughtered by Bournemouth 4 goals without reply two weeks ago.
Third, Sarri is also regarded as a mono system trainer. He doesn’t have plan B. The 4-3-3 scheme is as easy as the opponent to read. At the beginning of the season, indeed this system works well. Evidently, until October 2018, Chelsea’s position in the standings is still in second place.
Entering the half-season, Chelsea’s performance began to decline until it dropped to 4th place in December 2018. Entering 2019, the scheme played by Sarri still showed inconsistency, losing to Arsenal, Bournemouth, then winning 5-0 against Huddersfield.
Fourth, the defeat of City is also considered an excess of the club’s transfer policy. Abramovich’s decision to hand over the transfer of players to the hands of a Granovskaia Marina was considered unproductive.
After the departure of transfer expert Michael Emenalo, the transfer of Chelsea players was then in the control of a woman.
In Marina’s hands, the team did not have enough squad depth to navigate the 2018/2019 season plus participation in a number of tournaments.
Whatever it is, the defeat of City is a strong alarm for the manager. Sarri Ball’s philosophy, which many analysts praise like anticlimax. Will this defeat be a sign of the bells of the death of Maurizio Sarri’s career on the English football scene?
The Carabao Cup final match, once again against City on February 24, could be Sarri’s chance, to draw the length of his training breath at Stamford Bridge.
ASL
