Chelsea to stick by Maurizio Sarri despite embarrassing defeat to Manchester City… for now

Chelsea are set to stick with manager Maurizio Sarri despite alarmingly inconsistent results and the thrashing by Manchester City.

Sarri’s players and the club were humiliated by the 6-0 drubbing against Pep Guardiola’s City at the weekend and have been pushed out of the top four by Manchester United’s resurgence under caretaker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

But Chelsea are still only a point away from Champions League qualification and Sarri, 60, has steered them to the Carabao Cup final, where they will play City, again, at Wembley in two weeks.

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They also remain in the FA Cup, facing Manchester United in the fifth round next Monday and are in the knockout stages of the Europa League, and sources at the club have indicated that they will be sticking with him.

Sarri-ball is missing

A growing concern for Sarri is the players not playing in the Sarri-ball style for which the Italian is famous. Sarri was confident the players were picking up his philosophy early in the season when they went on an 18-game unbeaten run, but in the space of 10 days they conceded four away to Bournemouth and then the embarrassing six against Premier League leaders City.

Read more: Whatever Maurizio Sarri is trying to do, it’s clearly not working – Chelsea look lost

Sarri was back at work at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground on Monday as he prepares the squad for their two-legged tie with Malmo, who they face in Sweden on Thursday.

Chelsea’s manager admitted his concern on Sunday after the match that while he believed the players were at the right motivation level for the game — having previously accused them of lacking it — he was not seeing from them the style of football he expected. He insisted, however, that he was unconcerned about his future at the club.

Midfielder N’golo Kante said: “We’ve got a lot to learn from this, and hopefully we will not repeat the same mistakes in the future.”