After the sacking of former boss Antonio Conte as Chelsea head coach, the board made no mistake in bringing Maurizio Sarri who has perfected a football style called Sarriball with his former team Napoli of Italy. All Chelsea fans and pundits welcomed sarriball with open hands due to this system of play that is not only entertaining but very lovely to watch. Every football loving fan can attest to this.
The advent of the new season marked this pattern come to play in full force with a lot of applause across the football world. This pattern in stem in the philosophy of ensuring that opponent are not given any opportunity to pass the ball around rather dominating with a vertical tiki taka kind of play that ensure his player have the ball on their legs while searching for goals. Compatibility in one concept of the style which makes it difficult for opposite team to find passing angles as the 5 players in front of Jorginho do a lot of runs as well as maintain high level of concentration. There must win the ball back as soon as possible at the final third of the pith.
The master minder of this pattern is the Jorginho who sits at the base of the midfield to distribute fine passes due to his keen sight as well as lot of short runs. In fact, Jorginho is typical example of a box to box player but one thing that is lacking in his style of play is his lack or no interest at shooting at goal rather will give the ball to a nearby player when he should have made attempt on goal. No doubt this inability has cost Chelsea a lot of goal in some games but problem started for Jorginho against Chelsea fist defeat of the season after 13 game unbeaten run when Tottenham Son out ran him from the midfield to score without attempt by Jordinho to bring him down. This was a very big message to many teams coming to face Chelsea that marking out Jorginho was the antidote to sarri football.
Remember the former Napoli player holds the record of the highest passes in a single match in English premier league at 180 which he achieve when resilient West Ham held Chelsea to a draw. Before this match he was on cause to break it after his 173 pass tally against Newcastle earlier on.
Hazard
no doubt Hazard remains one of the best players in the league and Maurizio Sarri has carved out his formation to suit the style of play of Hazard. he has always being the box to box player operating from the both wings and taking his chances few times at goal but the poor nature of Chelsea strikers has made the player the hope of goals in sarriball with Pedro and Williams coming in between. Hazard is made to make the work easier for the midfielder by ensuring the defense of the opposite teams are not allowed to freely roam out of their box.
Another basic think about the formation is the fluid nature of the defense. Sarriball allows the central back to hold much of the ball in a build up play. this have seen David Luiz making key passes directly to the attackers especially the wingers.
Since that shocking defeat to Tottenham the sariball has go so cold that it is barely talked about. Does it mean that Maurizio Sarri has abandoned this philosophy on football due to the demanding nature of the English premier league? Or rather do l say that Jorginho has lost touch with his initial form.
Chelsea will later in the day host Leicester City in one of the festive period matches and I will personally look out for the remains of sarriball in Chelsea players as well as the coach himself. This game looks very easy on paper but Chelsea must be above average today to beat their opponent who are also playing compact game against the big boys.
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