Chelsea facing ‘crucial’ moment of season, Sarri tenure

Chelsea’s upcoming schedule in the next two weeks makes for scary reading — United at home in the FA Cup, Manchester City at Wembley the weekend after, Spurs the following midweek, with a second leg against Malmo thrown in there for good measure as well — and to describe it as a “crucial moment” may be an understatement, but it’s also a chance for the Blues to reset and begin the Sarri-ball revolution anew. Crucial, indeed.

“We know it’s a crucial moment, we have some very important matches. [...] It’s very challenging and I think the key will be to face each task by only thinking about that task.”

One match at a time, as the old cliche goes, but one that certainly applies in this case as Chelsea look to recover from the psychological blow of losing three away games by a combined 12-0 scoreline, half of which came at the hands of Manchester City last Sunday.

“Nobody is pleased when you lose games the way we have recently. The players, coaches, everyone. We know it’s a moment in which we’ve alternated results and that’s something we don’t like. We know we have to be consistent. We have the team to afford to do that and it’s important everyone understands the situation and is working on it, players, coaches and the club. It’s not the challenge, but it’s the unity facing the challenge which makes the difference and I believe we have that.”

-Gianfranco Zola; source: Chelsea FC

With an almost clean bill of health — Loftus-Cheek may even be available after re-aggravating his back injury in the last few days and missing Thursday’s game — and a team supposedly united behind the (probably under pressure) manager, Chelsea may yet pull off a surprise or two.