Sarri has already started planning ‘the team for next season’ with Chelsea

While everyone and their mother were speculating about how many days and games Maurizio Sarri may or may not have left at Stamford Bridge, as the embarrassing losses were piling up, the man himself was apparently spending his time talking with the club. That’s certainly not that unusual or unexpected, but Sarri claims that he wasn’t (just) talking about the current situation. He claims (seriously or not) that he was already in deep discussions about plans for next season and how to build the team for the future.

“I feel the same as before, but happier because the results are positive. When everyone talked about my dismissal, I was talking with the club to plan the team for next season, so I was always relaxed.”

-Maurizio Sarri; source: Sky Italia via Football Italia

Crisis? What crisis?

Assuming this is true and not just some brash boasting brought on by the suddenly bullish mood around the Bridge, we can perhaps start seeing how Sarri survived a sequence of results that would’ve gotten most others fired (either immediately or at the end of the season).

Of course, Sarri may not meet the minimum expectation of getting the team back into the Champions League either (via either the league or Europa), which would leave Chelsea with an interesting choice to make. Having apparently fully invested and bought into Sarri-ball for the foreseeable future — a direction that probably has a fair bit to do with Granovskaia — how much leeway are we truly willing to give him (and, by extension, her)? Singularly embarrassing one-off results, even two or three can be overlooked. Trust the process, and all that jazz. A season failing to meet minimum expectations might be a fair bit harder however.

Fortunately, Chelsea’s results are indeed improving. And if we can keep this up for the last 10 Premier League games of the season and however many Europa Leagues ones we may have left, we just might never have to face those though questions. And least not until next season...