A blog of two halves

Sarriball’s as bad as Brexit

The tide is turning against Morrie Sarri after a lull in hostilities occasioned by a couple of just-good-enough results and the international break.

2 April 2019
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Maurizio Sarri, Manager of Chelsea, during the Premier League match at Cardiff City Stadium. PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES

The tide is turning against Morrie Sarri after a lull in hostilities occasioned by a couple of just-good-enough results and the international break.

Blues fans who trekked to Cardiff last weekend for a flukey (but we'll take it) 2-1 win made their feelings clear in chanting that would make a navvy blush.

The gist? Sarriball is about as entertaining as Brexit, and everyone's getting fed up of giving up 90 minutes each weekend to watch interminable passing; the footballing equivalent of indicative votes.

Yet Chelsea are still in with a shout of a Champions League placing as, as they prepare for two evening home games in a row: against Brighton and West Ham.

Although the manager knows he's now as welcome in SW6 as a whoopee cushion at a funeral, the Blues have actually had a solid season in terms of results, with European excitement still bubbling.

If you pin fans down to a single gripe, it's this. In Callum Hudson-Odoi we have a teenager who is brimming with confidence, loved by supporters and admired around the world after an impressive England debut.

But persuading Sarri to break free from his cycle of tedious predictability (it feels like there's a mathematical formula for the next team selection) and give him some regular starts seems too much for anyone to do.

Losing Sarri in the summer is now inevitable. Losing Hudson-Odoi too is unthinkable.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

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Tim Harrison

Tim is our Chelsea FC blogger.

He also writes our Shepherds Bush Cricket Club match reports during the football close season.

Tim has been writing Chelsea match reports since the late 1980s for newspapers and, more recently, websites.

When he first reported on the Blues, the press box was a metal cage suspended over the lip of the old west stand - and you reached it via a precarious walkway over the heads of the fans.

But he has been a Chelsea fan since his father took an excited seven-year-old to watch Chelsea v Manchester United in the mid 1960s... and covered his ears every time the chanting got too ripe.

In July 2005 he wrote The Rough Guide to Chelsea, published by Penguin, which sold 15,000 copies.

His favourite player of all time is Charlie Cooke, the mazy winger who lit up Chelsea's left wing in the 60s and 70s.

When he isn't watching the Blues, Tim acts, paints, writes and researches local history.

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