Carabao Cup: Player Power, Angry Sarri, Disrespectful Kepa And Man City Quadruple Hunt Is On

And there it was, Chelsea’s madness, laid bare in front of millions. The manager, impotent, powerless, raging to no one in particular on the margins. The players, defiant, uncaring, doing their own thing, singing their own song. Where, exactly, do Chelsea and Maurizio Sarri go from here? How does Sarri take training, or issue further instructions having been so thoroughly embarrassed and undermined on such a public stage? How do Chelsea attract a replacement of substance, if Sarri’s position is untenable, when it has been made so clear where the power lies? If Sarri cannot control this dressing-room, who can? Who will want to?

The consequence of many years’ dereliction of duty, of failing to support the manager when it mattered, played out on the Wembley pitch. Whatever mistakes Sarri has made this season, he did not deserve this. Sarri had masterminded a strategy that kept Manchester City quiet and goalless and almost had the game won in 90 minutes. His reward was devastating humiliation at the hands of his players. They should be ashamed of themselves. All of them. For they were all responsible, not just insubordinate goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga. When Sarri made the decision to substitute him, in the final minute of second-half injury time, there were 11 players whose job was to respect that decision, not just one. So if Arrizabalaga refuses to budge it is the duty of the other 10 to ensure he understands the inviolability of the manager’s decision. Chelsea’s players did not do this. David Luiz was in dialogue with his goalkeeper team-mate, but no one else seemed greatly interested beyond that. Sarri’s wishes were ignored. From there, Chelsea had to win. It wouldn’t make Arrizabalaga right, but it might at least have partly vindicated his stubbornness. Chelsea lost. Arrizabalaga dived over Sergio Aguero’s kick, a soft one. Luiz missed his penalty. The revolutionaries did not advance their cause. Sarri’s staff might wonder if they could have done more, too. Where was Gianfranco Zola in this, for instance? Could he not have encroached on the pitch and made Sarri’s point even clearer? It was a mess, every inch of it. A mess that, one feels, could only happen at this club. Let’s start at the beginning. Arrizabalaga had been nursing a hamstring injury coming into this game but was passed fit. Then, in the 19th minute of extra time, he received treatment for what looked like cramp having made a save from Aguero. He carried on. In the 26th minute of extra time — so the 121st minute of the match, all told, including injury time — he saved from Aguero again and seemed to cramp up instantly again. Sarri had seen enough. With a minute to go, and penalties now seemingly certain, he elected to bring on Willy Caballero, who had performed magnificently in a League Cup final shootout here in 2016, winning with Manchester City against Liverpool. The numbers came up. Arrizabalaga signalled he was fine to continue. Sarri insisted. Then, as Caballero stood embarrassed in the pitchside technical area, Arrizabalaga as good as refused to go, waving his arms furiously, and pouring out his frustration to Luiz. Referee Jon Moss got involved but, as is the modern way, attempted game management instead of doing his duty. He should have told Arrizabalaga he had been substituted and would be booked, then sent off, if he refused to leave the field. Instead, he acted as mediator. Eventually the game restarted with Arrizabalaga’s position intact. 

Now Sarri really lost it. It was his turn to be furious. At first he stormed down the tunnel as if sick of the lot of them, the doors opened for him obediently, before he thought better and reappeared. Caballero, a decent guy, now humiliated by the judgment of his team-mate, could be seen being consoled. At the final whistle, Chelsea went into a huddle of disarray with Sarri at first appearing to be held back by Antonio Rudiger from confronting some of his players. When the shootout began, his talisman, Jorginho, stepped up, hit a penalty as poor as Chelsea’s morale looked, and gave an easy save to Ederson’s left. After the game, the manager cut a pathetic sight. Where it was hoped he might come out fighting, at last pointing the finger at those in the dressing-room who felt they were above instruction, he took the blame, said it was a misunderstanding, that the doctor hadn’t conveyed the message. He added that Arrizabalaga, incredibly, was right. Even if all these mitigations were true, even if he wasn’t injured and the doctor was a quack — which he most certainly isn’t — Arrizabalaga was still given his orders by the manager, and ignored them. It shouldn’t need a physician to diagnose a diseased football club, if this is how it conducts its affairs. Roman Abramovich may not have a visa to work in this country any more, but he can surely turn up at the training ground to give one of his famous addresses to the squad. And if he does not, what does that say about Chelsea’s relationship with its manager; with all of its managers, we should say. This is a club that will soon be subject to a year-long transfer ban. Are they going to have to spend millions in dismissal and recruitment again, or might the owner at last make clear who is in charge, and what is considered unacceptable? If Sarri does not feel empowered to call out such poor behaviour, what does this say of him, too? What is he hoping to gain? A stay of execution? If his standing at Chelsea is as hollow as it appeared on Sunday, why would he even want that?

A smidgen of sympathy, too, for Raheem Sterling, scorer of the vital fourth, and winning, penalty for Manchester City after Leroy Sane’s miss. Growing up in the shadow of this stadium, Sterling no doubt dreamed of occasions like this. Not in his wildest imaginings, however, could his crowning moment have taken place in such surreal surroundings. Here was a match-winning penalty, in a shootout, for a trophy, taken clinically and forcefully in front of the same fans that gave him such a hostile reaction at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season. Yet the chaos that had unfolded around Chelsea by that time relegated Sterling’s moment to second billing. And the match itself to third. Given what happened the last time these teams met, nobody could blame Chelsea for setting up with a degree of caution. There was nothing ambitious or expansive for 45 minutes, little that suggested possession and passing were being prioritised. When Pedro got an ineffectual header on a Willian free-kick after 25 minutes and 36 seconds, it represented Chelsea’s first touch in the Manchester City penalty area. Yet City were being thwarted, and the second half revealed Chelsea’s game plan in its entirety. Stay in the game and wait for the mistakes to creep into City’s play. So it proved. Chelsea’s breaks became more dangerous, Eden Hazard’s false nine started to worry the back line. With a little more support, Chelsea could have won the game in the second half here. Support, however, is in sadly short supply in west London, it seems. Photo Credit: Getty

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