Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri has suggested he needs another player like N’Golo Kante to get the squad balance right at Stamford Bridge.
The Italian was speaking after watching his side fall to their first home defeat of the season, where Leicester City rocked up with a smash-and-grab 1-0 win.
Do Chelsea lack midfield balance? Five things to know…
- Sarri took over as manager from Antonio Conte this summer.
- The former Napoli boss likes his director of football to deal with transfers.
- Chelsea have played with a midfield trio (Kante, Jorginho and Kovacic, Barkley or Loftus-Cheek) most of this season.
- But Sarri feels Chelsea lack defensive-minded midfielders.
- The Italian appeared to suggest he would like another player like Kante.
Chelsea are currently fourth in the Premier League table despite falling to defeat last Saturday.
The Blues manager feels the current squad has too many players, which will leave some disgruntled due to a lack of game time.
“At the moment we are too many. We have 28 players and it’s impossible to use all of them. I think 25 is the right number,” Sarri said, according to the Independent.
Sarri, who uses a 4-3-3 formation, says Chelsea have “a lot” of offensive-minded midfielders but only one defensive player in the position.
With the January transfer window just over a week away, and Cesc Fabregas and Danny Drinkwater linked with moves away, the west London club may look to reshuffle their options in the middle of the park.
Sarri added: “You already know my opinion, because I’ve told you in the past. We have a lot of offensive midfielders and we have only [N’Golo] Kante as a defensive midfielder so it’s not easy now for the midfield to have the right balance.”
Who is likely to leave Chelsea in January?
With the Blues boss revealing his side has too many players for his liking it makes sense that there will be departures in the window.
It is already known that Drinkwater could be on his way out after Sarri revealed the former Leicester man does not fit into his three-man midfield.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek can be expected to stay. He initially struggled to make the side in the first few games of the season, but he has now started four of the last five games while also appearing as a 61st-minute substitute in the Leicester defeat.
It is reported that Chelsea want to offload Fabregas to bring in Denis Suarez from Barcelona, but the 24-year-old Spaniard would not fit the criteria of a “defensive” midfielder Sarri feels they lack.
Despite Sarri’s words, the extra cover in attacking midfield may prove an advantage over the busy Christmas period, as Chelsea face Watford at Vicarage Road on Boxing Day before travelling to Crystal Palace three days later following that up with a home game against Southampton on New Year’s Day.
The post Maurizio Sarri suggests Chelsea need another N’Golo Kante appeared first on Squawka News.
From Squawka NewsSquawka News http://bit.ly/2RjNTjS
No comments:
Post a Comment