Chelsea need to stop being ‘superficial’ and ‘kill’ teams

Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri has lamented his sides propensity for turning off during games and their inability to ‘kill’ off opposition teams.

Despite dominating most of the games they play Chelsea have failed to make the most of their superiority at times, and Sarri has repeatedly complained about his sides mentality over recent months.

Part of Chelsea’s problem has undoubtedly been their lack of a clinical striker to put away the chances they create, although that issue will more than likely be negated if the Stamford Bridge club finalise the expected transfer of Gonzalo Higuain from Juventus in the coming days.

Sarri has revealed that he is also unhappy with his side for dropping their application levels after going ahead in games.

‘I know very well that we need to improve a lot,’ Sarri told a pre-match press conference.

‘We need to improve from the tactical point of view and mentally. We had problems with reactions to difficulties in the beginning and now we react very well to a difficulty.

‘Now we have to show we can react from a positive situation. In the last matches, when we scored, we lowered the application and attention. So now we have to work just to avoid this.

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‘We were superficial I think (against Newcastle) because we thought the match was won. Being superficial is one of the biggest problems a team can have, so we have to counter the superficiality.

‘If you are winning 1-0, you cannot think that the match is easy. So you have to kill the match. Then you have to manage the match.

‘The players know very well my opinion. I told them very often my feeling, sometimes, after the goal was that we were sometimes superficial. They know very well the situation, I think.’