LONDON – Chelsea will not abandon their possession-based playing style and will continue to rely heavily on playmaker Jorginho, manager Maurizio Sarri said on Friday, despite back-to-back defeats in the Premier League.
Wednesday’s humiliating 4-0 loss at Bournemouth was the West London club worst league loss since 1996.
That followed a 2-0 defeat by Arsenal.
Despite dominating possession against Bournemouth, Chelsea struggled to kick into gear, with Jorginho man-marked.
But Sarri said he would not tweak his 4-3-3 system for Saturday’s clash with Huddersfield Town.
“First, I want to do very well the Plan A. I don’t want to change something that isn’t working. I want to see it play well, and then we look to change something,” Sarri told reporters.
Several aspects of that plan were in need of improvement, he said.
“I need to speak to my players and involve them more than I am doing at the moment. We need to improve in the reaction, the offensive phase, as we have a lot of individual players. It is not easy to change.”
The Italian tore into his players after the Bournemouth game, repeating his earlier assertion that he cannot motivate them.
“I said that maybe I wasn’t able to motivate them. If there were some mental problems, it could be players, technical staff or the club,” Sarri said.
“We must be doing something wrong, the staff first of all. It is a part of my job, of course, but I want to change the mentality.”
Chelsea lie fifth in the table with 47 points from 24 games.
Sarri reiterates his apology to the Chelsea fans for the 'disastrous' result on Wednesday. 'They have to be patient with us at the moment because we are trying to do something great. It's not easy, we have to improve, but we are trying to do our best'. #CHEHUD
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) February 1, 2019