Chelsea owner Abramhovic finally reveals Sarri sack conditions

After a strong start to the season, the Blues have slipped down to sixth in the Premier League table following three straight away defeats. Chelsea are still in all three cup competitions, including the final of the Carabao Cup where they face Manchester City next weekend. Chelsea chiefs want to see evidence Maurizio Sarri can improve the Blues – or the Italian’s time at Stamford Bridge may be short lived.

That is according to ESPN FC pundit and European football expert Julien Laurens. Sarri was only appointed as successor to Antonio Conte in July 2017 but his long-term future at Chelsea is already in doubt after a poor run of results since the turn of the year.

Like Conte, Laurens cannot see a cup win saving Sarri his job. He instead thinks director Marina Granovskaia and owner Roman Abramovich want clear examples Sarri is taking the club in the right direction. “I’m not sure it [winning the FA Cup] would be enough,” Laurens said. “It was not enough for Antonio Conte, for example.”

“Let’s not forget as well, before talking about if Sarri could get sacked, they have’t even sorted out, they’re going to go to court with Antonio Conte over the fee that they will pay him for him leaving and sacking him in the summer. That’s not even sorted out yet and already there could be another manager out of the door with which they will have to negotiate as well a fee for sacking him.”

“It would be a bit of a mess, I don’t think an FA Cup would be enough. I think what the Chelsea fans want to see and the directors as well, Marina Granovskaia and Roman Abramovich, is to see if he can take that team forward. And so far we haven’t seen much improvement. Yes the start of the season was okay, they were playing good and we praised him for that.”

“But since then they haven’t moved forward at all and there’s no improvement really. And if you lose your best player in the summer, which looks very, very likely in Eden Hazard, there’s not many chances that if Sarri’s still there, the team keeps improving. I think that’s the biggest issue.”

Meanwhile, Lampard has impressed so far in his first managerial job at Derby, leading the Rams to seventh in the table as well as good runs in both cup competitions. Lampard and fellow former Blue Jody Morris, who is his assistant at Pride Park, have been linked with the Chelsea job. But Merson says it is too early to judge whether Lampard or Morris have the ability to manage a club the size of Chelsea. “Not yet,” he said.