Sarri confident of Chelsea future, concentrating only on Chelsea present

Maurizio Sarri will not be Chelsea manager forever. He may not even be Chelsea manager next season. The club’s form may have improved in the past couple weeks, but if we don’t meet minimum expectations — Champions League qualification — he’d (probably) be back on the chopping block faster than we can say Sarri-ball.

But for now, he appears to be safe, and as long as Chelsea keep winning, that will be the case. Either way, he’s fully concentrating on the matters at hand, rather than worrying about his own future — a fairly common (and possibly even required) mindset in professional football, to be fair.

No fear; fear is the mind-killer.

“In this moment, only the Europa League is important. In this moment, Dynamo Kyiv is everything. I am confident [of retaining his position] otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do my work. I have to think like this if I want to do my job in the next way.

“I’m confident. I was confident in the past, and I am confident now. But I want to think only about our performances and our results, nothing else.”

That said, Sarri and Chelsea have reportedly started planning the squad for next season already and as Sarri revealed this week, have been making plans to adjust preseason more to his liking — even as he recognizes that there’s a chance he won’t be able to partake in it. We can only hope that if and when Sarri does get sacked, the transition will be handled more smoothly and with far less acrimony than the situation last summer, which continues to play out in a legal battle between the club and Antonio Conte.

“We were talking about the problem of the next preseason. We were trying to organise in the best way the next preseason. I’ve said it’s not important if I’m here next season. At this moment, it’s important only the results.”

-Maurizio Sarri; source: Guardian

The next result will unveil itself in just a few short hours as Chelsea host Dynamo Kiev in the first leg of the Europa League’s Round of 16. A win, as usual, is expected.