Chelsea head coach Maurizio Sarri intends to stick rigidly to his tactical methods until his players are fully adapted.
The Blues boss has stubbornly stuck with a 4-3-3 formation, with creative midfielder Jorginho at its heart, even though Chelsea’s performances have stuttered of late.
World Cup winner N’Golo Kante has been deployed on the right side of midfield, in a more attacking role than the one to which he is accustomed, to accommodate Jorginho, who followed Sarri from Napoli to Stamford Bridge last July.
“We are not ready to change at the moment,” said Sarri, speaking ahead of Saturday’s Premier League clash at Arsenal.
“I can change when we are at 100 per cent in what I want to see. If in 4-3-3 we are at the top, we can try to change.
“Like in Naples last season, when we played in the last period also in 4-2-3-1. But not at the moment. We are not ready.”
Sarri refused to say how close his team are to being ready, referring to the chaotic fixture schedule in English football which limits preparation periods.
“It’s not easy in this situation to improve a lot in such little time,” he added.
Sarri said Jorginho was “in trouble” in last week’s win over Newcastle and would have been replaced had Cesc Fabregas not left for Monaco.
Chelsea are still to recruit a new specialist in the position, with Zenit St Petersburg’s Leandro Paredes linked.
Jorginho has registered more passes – with 1,997 – than any other player in the Premier League this season and Sarri put his performance against the Magpies down to fatigue.
The 60-year-old Italian said: “Maybe in the last two matches he was a little bit tired.
“He moved the ball a little bit (more) slowly than before. But I think that it’s normal.
“You cannot stay at the top for 60 matches, so it’s normal to have a different period, a period when you are not so lucid as usual. But it’s not a big problem.”
Provided by Press Association Sport
