THE SAME HAPPENED WHILE I WAS IN EMPOLI AND NAPOLI, SARRI EXPLAINS AS HIS SIDE GETS READY TO BATTLE PALACE WITHOUT GIROUD.

On friday, Maurizio Sarri was in a media conference and he threw lights on the necessity of the team to continue improving on the defensive line due to the incidents that occured at their last match against Derby County, which was unlike the team against Burnley on the last weekend when The Blues scored 4 goals and conceded none.

In order to create an atmosphere that would enhance a proper understanding of what he meant, he illustrated a kind of flashback to his days in his former two clubs before joining the Billonaires club. 

Maurizio Sarri headed Empoli and Napoli respectively before taking over Chelsea. Sarri linked the present situation at Chelsea to be likely to what happens to any team he manages, he explained that career at Empoli, his team suffered series of injury at first and were not in a good shape but as time went by and the players got healed, they got back on track in about four or five matches.

He went on to explain that during his days at Napoli, he suffered the same crises at first but as time went by, things fell into shape and his then-side, Napoli after 4 matches now came up and won 5-0 in an Europa League fixture against Bruges, and 5-0 as well to Lazio three days later.

‘We have the same problem [at Chelsea] but the quality of the players is very high, so they are able to win matches with a very good offensive phase, but for the future we need to become a very solid team if we want to be competitive and win something. If you look at the league table, the first-place team Man City have conceded only three goals and the second team only four goals. So it is very important to be solid to be competitive', Sarri said.

‘We need to improve in recovering the ball in the other half,’ Sarri explains. ‘We need to press in the opponents’ half. We need to recover immediately the lost ball and to do that we need to have good positions behind the line of the ball when we are in the offensive phase. Sometimes we are in the wrong positions, like in the last matches, so it is impossible to recover immediately the lost ball. It is impossible not to give to the opponents spaces for the counter-attacks. So we need first of all to improve in the offensive positions if we want to be solid.’

The Blues will be going up against Crystal Palace today but definitely without their front-man Olivier Giroud as he is still yet to recover from a leg injury, leaving the front duties for Alvaro Morata who has been struggling to deliver pleasant results to his boss, Maurizio Sarri. But reports have it that Olivier will be ready by Thursday to join his side in the battle against their Europa fixture, Belarus.