Maurizio Sarri has revealed his biggest problem at Chelsea is players not adapting to his philosophy due to the ‘English mentality’ which favors intensity over tactics.
The Italian’s job was hanging by a thread but the 2-0 win over Tottenham on Wednesday eased the pressure. Despite the win, there are still significant question marks over his future at Chelsea with a win over Fulham on Sunday required. A number of club supporters have questioned his tactics of ‘Sarri-ball’, however, the former Napoli boss is not willing to drop his tactics.
“It’s impossible to answer. Sometimes three months is enough, sometimes you need one season or one-and-a-half seasons,” Sarri told Sky Sports.
“I think that if you change country if you change football, it’s longer. Now I am in the first season in England so I started to understand something, not everything at the moment, but something. So now I realize that here is longer, it’s more difficult.”
“The mentality is really different. For example, with an English player, it is very easy to have a very good intensity during the training. But it’s very difficult to have a session only about tactics. In Italy, it’s the opposite. It’s very easy to work in tactics, and it’s very difficult to have a great intensity during the training. It’s different. No worse, no better, just different.”
“With English players but also with the other players, because we have a lot of players that are playing here for a long time so the mentality is an English mentality. ‘I have to understand, and I think that I need also to have an English mentality.”