Sarri: Giroud not scoring is not a problem for Chelsea
Maurizio Sarri insists he does not need Olivier Giroud to bang in the goals for Chelsea to be successful this season.
Giroud has gone 10 Chelsea matches without a goal in all competitions this term – but Sarri believes France’s World Cup-winner pulls his weight in selfless link-up play.
Sarri also believes Chelsea must tighten up at the back to push for honours this term.
But the former Napoli coach is also encouraged by his midfielders starting to find the net, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek firing a hat-trick in Thursday’s 3-1 win over BATE Borisov.
“One month ago, we were concerned about the fact the midfielders didn’t score,” said Sarri.
“And now in the last three matches, Barkley scored two goals and Loftus three goals so I think that if we are able to continue to play this football maybe in a month the strikers will be able to score.
“You know the characteristics of Giroud: Giroud usually is not used to scoring a lot of goals in a season but he’s always very, very useful for the team, for his team-mates.
“So Giroud is not a problem for us. And Morata in the last five matches, scored two goals.
“I think they will be able to do better but the most important thing is that the team will continue to play this football.
“Usually the winner is the team who concedes less goals. In Italy – I don’t know here – but I think the same.
“We have to improve in the defensive phase.
“We could have done better in the last 20 minutes (against BATE) because we needed only to move the ball and to take the positions.
“We conceded spaces to the opponents so at the end we conceded a very stupid goal and I didn’t like it.
“It’s very dangerous if you make the same mistakes against very high level opponents, you’re in trouble, like against Liverpool, against Manchester United so we need to control the match better.”
Chelsea will bid to extend their unbeaten Premier League start to 10 matches when facing Burnley at Turf Moor on Sunday.
Sarri has admitted he will make wholesale changes to the line-up that faced BATE on Thursday – primarily owing to the quick turnaround.
“I think that we need to change six, seven players for Sunday,” said Sarri.
“It’s very difficult in England to play in Europe, I think also in the Champions League because Liverpool had to play in Naples after two matches against Chelsea, United had to play against Juventus after three days of the match here in Stamford Bridge.
“We have to play after 65 hours this match so it’s very, very difficult for an English team to be competitive also in Europe.
“I think the match in Burnley will be very difficult because I saw in the last season a lot of matches of Burnley at home so I know very well that it is a very difficult match.”
