Why Maurizio Sarri may not be to blame for Ruben Loftus-Cheek snub

Maurizio Sarri is taking an absolute battering after what happened against Manchester City, and rightly so.

The manager’s tactics, and his resistance to altering them, is really hurting Chelsea, and his lack of rotation is damaging too.

But there are some things he’s being criticised for that he probably isn’t responsible for.

One of these is the fact that he didn’t start Ruben Loftus-Cheek yesterday, as the editor of this very website pointed out in a Tweet today, that may not entirely be down to him:

We don’t have any inside info, but it seems very possible that Sarri has been told to restrict Ruben’s minutes.

His back problem is a chronic one, not something that you can just recover from like a dead leg. We imagine, after Ruben was forced off with a recurrence against Nottingham Forest last week, that our coach may have been told by the medical staff to let the England midfielder ease his way back into action. Throwing him another start when he’s only just back from his latest breakdown could cause long term issues.

So let’s ease off on this criticism for now – there are plenty of more pressing things we can call out Sarri for already.

Chelsea News