Maurizio
Sarri accused his Chelsea players of being "difficult to motivate" following
his side's 2-0 defeat at Arsenal.
Chelsea produced a lacklustre performance at the Emirates Stadium as goals
from Alexandre Lacazette and Laurent Koscielny cut the gap to fourth to
three points to reinvigorated Arsenal's Champions League qualification
hopes.
Following the defeat, Sarri, who spoke in Italian, once again criticised the
mentality of his players.
"Today I prefer to speak Italian first of all because I want to send a
message to my players and I want my message to be very clear," the Chelsea
head coach said. "I don't want to make a mistake with my English.
"I have to say that I'm extremely angry, very angry indeed, because this
defeat was due to our mentality more than anything else.
"We played against a team that was mentally far more determined that we
were, and this is something I can't accept.
"We had a similar issue in the league game at Tottenham. We spoke a great
deal about that particular loss and our approach at the time. I spoke to the
players, I thought that we had managed to overcome the issue.
"It seems to me they have an issue with having a sufficient amount of
determination and being mentally solid. I'm not happy at all because I
prefer to come into the press room and into the changing room to talk about
the tactics and why we lost from a strategy point of view, but the fact of
the matter is that it would appear that this group of players is extremely
difficult to motivate."
Sarri said Arsenal were more determined to win than his team and he refused
to blame tactics for the defeat, which left them just three points ahead of
Arsenal and Manchester United in fourth.
"I think that when you see this kind of a game in which one team is quite
obviously more determined than the other, we can't really talk about
tactics," he said.
"From a technical point of view both teams are pretty much the same, but as
I said they were more determined than us, so the tactics don't even come
into it.
"It seems to me that their high level of determination was really obvious
throughout the game, I would say particular in both penalty areas, if you
just think about how clinical they were when they scored their goal, and yet
we in defence weren't as determined.
"We weren't strong enough in defence, particularly with the first goal we
conceded. We could have lost that game anyway, we could have lost it for
tactical or technical reasons, but I think we lost it because of our
determination. I couldn't possibly say I'm not responsible as well, in part,
I think that's something we have to share."
Sarri is now looking for answers as he tries to improve his side's mentality
and he thinks the arrival of a new player could help.
Sky in Italy reported Gonzalo Higuain, who is on loan at AC Milan from
Juventus, has agreed to move to Stamford Bridge until the end of the season,
when they will then have the option to buy the Argentina striker.
"It seems to me that as a group of players they are not particularly
aggressive from a mental point of view," he said. "They don't have ferocity
in their mentality.
"That's something that is down to the kind of players they are, their
characteristics. It's something that is difficult to change. You have to try
and influence their mentality. It's something that could take quite a long
time.
"By the same token, it could be changed by a new player coming in, or
perhaps one of the old heads in the team assuming responsibility and driving
the rest of the team forward."
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