Chelsea lost the Carabao Cup final to Manchester City on Sunday and once again Sarri’s managerial qualities have come under scrutiny.
And no this is not because the team played poorly.
In fact, this was one of the better performances we had seen from a Chelsea side during the past couple of months but thanks to Kepa Arrizabalaga all that good work has gone down the drain.
The keeper was scheduled to be taken off right before the match was about the enter the penalty shootouts and the £72 million was to be replaced by Willy Caballero.
But as the whole stadium watched, Kepa refused to come off the pitch.
The goalkeeper kept waving his asking prompting that he was not ready to walk off.
This left Maurizio Sarri fuming and for once it looked like the Italian had walked into the tunnel only to emerge a few seconds later.
In the end, though, it was Kepa who had his say over the manager(quite shockingly) and stayed on the field.
After this incident, almost everyone has bashed the keeper with many people pointing to the fact that Sarri has no control over his players.
Fans and pundits alike have urged the manager to punish Kepa for his actions and most of them feel that the keeper should no longer play for the club.
But it looks like Sarri is in no mood to vent out his anger on Kepa, especially after what he said after the game.
“I understood he had cramp, so I didn’t want the goalkeeper to go to the penalties in that physical condition,” Sarri said about Kepa.
“I realized the situation after three or four minutes when the doctor arrived on the bench.
“I wanted Caballero on the pitch, but the goalkeeper wanted to let me know he was in condition to go to the penalties.
“It was only a big misunderstanding. Kepa was right but in the wrong way. Wrong in the way he conducted himself, but mentally he was right because he was able to go to the penalties.”
This statement is a clear indication that Sarri is in no mood to punish Kepa(not publicly atleast).
And this has not gone down too well with many fans who wanted Kepa to be punished so that it would set an example for all the other players in the squad.
But clearly, Sarri is in no mood to give rise to a mutiny inside the dressing room.
