Alonso admits mistakes were made against Arsenal

Maurizio Sarri pulled the pin on the truth-grenade after Chelsea’s 2-0 loss against Arsenal last night, and now all eyes are on Cobham to see the explosion, the reaction, the fallout from what’s roundly being called a “remarkable” press conference (even though we’ve seen similar events from Antonio Conte, José Mourinho, and even the likes of, ominously, Andre Villas-Boas).

We might have to wait a few days to see what the overall effect, if any, will be of Sarri’s frustrations boiling over, but at least for Marcos Alonso, there are plenty of things to work on already.

“When you lose, you learn. We have to analyse the game and improve quickly because there is no time to think. We have to perform again in four days.”

While Sarri put Chelsea’s loss down to mentality, Alonso feels that silly mistakes were made by the team — perhaps as a result of those mental lapses? Either way, Sarri’s plans are not being implemented properly, so perhaps that’s good common ground to start from.

“We made silly mistakes. We provoked them to gain confidence and come to press us because we were making mistakes. In the second half we tried but it was too late and we couldn’t score.”

“It was a good opportunity [to go clear of other teams]. We wasted it and now we have to work even harder to stay in a Champions League position and win games. It has to motivate us.”

-Marcos Alonso; source: Chelsea FC

Motivating this bunch if hard, said Sarri yesterday. But so far this season, Chelsea have responded to every defeat with a win. We could certainly use one on Thursday against Spurs in the second leg of the League Cup semifinal.