Chelsea vs Manchester City: Maurizio Sarri calls on side to show same determination to avoid win being ‘useless’

Sarri was delight with his side's mentality after he accused them of lacking in-game management

Maurizio Sarri has challenged his Chelsea team to show the same determination in future as they did today, or else their 2-0 win over Manchester City would be “useless”.

Sarri was delighted with Chelsea’s performance at Stamford Bridge against the reigning champions, especially given his recent criticisms of his team. Sarri used his press conference on Friday afternoon to say that his team go into “blackout” when they go behind, and that they need to be mentally stronger.

But today Chelsea did look mentally stronger, holding off Manchester City for 40 minutes before hitting them on the break and eventually winning the game 2-0. This was the first Premier League game that City have lost all season.

Sarri was delighted but he told his players that they would have to maintain the same mental focus for the rest of their games, especially those against lesser teams. Chelsea have Brighton, Bournemouth, Leicester City, Watford and Crystal Palace still to play this month.

“I am really very happy,” Sarri said. “Now we need to find this kind of motivations, and we need to play with this level of determination, the right aggression, also in our other matches. Otherwise it is useless to win a match like this.”

Sarri made the frank admission that his team struggles to motivate itself against lesser sides, and that if they are to really build on this famous win then they must continue to play with this much intensity even against teams with nothing on City.

“We have a team with some difficulties to be motivated,” Sarri said. “In this kind of matches it is very easy to have a very great motivation, a very good level of determination, the right level of aggressivity. But during the season you have to play against small teams.

“For example in the [next] match we go to Brighton. There will be three points on the pitch, like today. So we need continuity in motivations, continuity in determinations. Otherwise we can win this match, lose the next match.”

Sarri also confirmed that Alvaro Morata was left out of the squad for football reasons, because it would have been “useless” to include both Morata and Olivier Giroud on the bench for the game. “We played Hazard as a striker, if we had to change something, there was Giroud,” he said.

“I think it was useless to have two strikers on the bench. And I preferred to have more midfielders. Today I was in trouble with the wingers, so the only option was Ruben Loftus-Cheek.”