Maurizio Sarri will be sacked by Chelsea at the end of the season, former Arsenal winger Perry Groves believes.
The Italian coach is under intense scrutiny in the Stamford Bridge hotseat after a dismal 4-0 defeat to Bournemouth saw the Blues drop out of the Premier League’s top four.
The result, Chelsea’s heaviest Premier League loss since 1996, compounded what has been a turbulent few weeks for the team, with Sarri hitting the headlines for his confrontational behaviour.
Sarri faced criticism after he publicly slammed his players following their London derby defeat to Arsenal earlier in January, and the boss was confronted by angry fans after their miserable outing at Bournemouth, after which he locked his players in the dressing room for an hour-long debrief.
The former Napoli boss was tasked with fixing a fractured dressing room when he was appointed as Antonio Conte’s successor in the summer, but if anything he has only made things worse.
And Groves believes Sarri will be gone after just one season at the helm.
“He wont be their manager next season – he’ll be gone at the end of the season,” he told talkSPORT host Jim White.
“I can’t see Chelsea coming in the top four and if you don’t come in the top four, you’ll be gone.
“After all the kafuffle with Antonio Conte and the board, upsetting everybody and questioning the transfer policy, and with Jose Mourinho upsetting everybody before that, Sarri was brought in to just calm everything down and make it a little bit more serene – but you still have to win games.
“With a manager there’s a difference between having the courage of your convictions and being stubborn, being obstinate – now he’s doing that and the players aren’t having him.
“It’s really that simple. They’re not having him, and he even said in the second half [against Bournemouth] the players weren’t implementing his ideas. He didn’t change his system and the players are thinking, ‘you’ve got to do something here, try something different’. As a manager you’ve got to change it.
“For him to say he can’t motivate his players… players should always motivate themselves, and even if they don’t like the manager or the system, they should always give 100 per cent.
“But they don’t believe in him.
“The difference between him and Eddie Howe is the Bournemouth players, all of them, buy into what he’s trying to do.
“But at Chelsea that isn’t happening, they’re not having him, they’re not buying into him.”