Paul Merson has labelled Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri as ‘lazy’ after simply trying to replicate what he did at Napoli.
Sarri and his ‘Sarri-ball’ style of football were widely lauded during his time at Napoli, where he picked up a record number of Serie A points yet still finished as runners up to serial champions, Juventus.
He moved to Chelsea in the summer, and got off to a fine start, going on a 12 game unbeaten run in the Premier League which left some to question if the Blues could challenge for the title.
However, they have since lost six games in the league, including the humiliating defeats to Bournemouth and Man City, which has seen them fall out of the top four, and were dumped out of the FA Cup last night by Manchester United in what was yet another blunt performance from the West London club.
Speaking on Sky Sports The Debate programme, former Arsenal attacker Paul Merson slammed the Italian for just trying to replicate what he did with Napoli last season.
“Chelsea haven’t got the money to do what Pep Guardiola did at Manchester City, to say: ‘My full-backs aren’t good enough so I’m going to pay £50m for one, £50m for another one.’
“As a Chelsea fan, it looks lazy to me. ‘I was manager at Napoli, Jorginho was good for me, I’m going to buy Jorginho. I need a forward, Higuain scored a load of goals for me.’
“People are saying he was successful [at Napoli], he’s never won anything in the game. Yeah, he got more points at Napoli, I’ve never played for a team in my entire life where we’d be happy winning nothing but getting more points. You play to win.”
Read also – Five things we learned from Chelsea’s defeat to Manchester United.