CHELSEA ASSISTANT COACH Gianfranco Zola implied the club will report Burnley to the Football Association (FA) after their coaching staff allegedly “offended” Maurizio Sarri in Monday’s 2-2 draw.
An entertaining contest ended with fractious scenes, as a scuffle on the pitch saw several players get involved and it ended with a Mateo Kovacic booking.
Chelsea boss Sarri was subsequently given his marching orders after he had walked down the touchline, seemingly trying to talk to his players during the previous fracas.
The tension boiled over again at full-time as players and coaches headed towards the tunnel, with Antonio Rudiger – who did not play for Chelsea during the game – appearing to be particularly irritated by something.
Sarri subsequently refused to fulfil his post-match media duties due to his mental state, with Zola revealing the Chelsea head coach was angry about something that was said to him by someone on the Burnley bench.
“The reason [for Sarri not showing up after the game] is he’s very frustrated, so he’d prefer not to come over here,” Zola told a news conference.
“He’s been sent off. I think he’s been offended as well, so he didn’t feel it was the right thing to do, to speak to you [the media].
“I know you wanted him, so I’m sorry, but you can understand. He’s frustrated at the game, frustrated at being sent off, and the other thing. He’d prefer not to come in.
“I think he’s been told something from their bench, but don’t ask me exactly what. I don’t want to go down that line, but we’ll see what we can do about that.
“I think there will be a follow[-up] on that. Maurizio felt very unhappy. We understand it’s a football game.
“You say words because of the adrenalin, but he wasn’t particularly happy. If Maurizio said that, probably it’s something that could have been avoided.”
Zola also claimed Sarri’s sending off came as a result of a misunderstanding.
“It’s normal that there’s a lot of passion in it,” he said. “We wanted to win, they didn’t want to lose.
“It’s normal to have tension. Maurizio has been sent off while trying to help. He went down there to help Kevin [Friend, the referee] and tell our players to get into position, but he was sent off.”
David Luiz was scathing of Burnley at full-time, accusing them of playing “anti-football” and of excessive time-wasting.
While Zola was not quite as inflammatory in his remarks, he agreed that Burnley were not sporting.
“Burnley played their own game and tried to get this point,” the Italian added. “We didn’t play enough in the second half, because there was too much time wasting, but they did what they had to do.
“We were not very happy because we thought five minutes wasn’t enough to compensate, so we are very disappointed about that.”
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Even when on the bench he didn’t get game time. The coach doesn’t like or trust him. Saturday once again showed just how wrong O’connor has been all season
O’Connor is just all wrong for Leinster.
He has a very big chance next season with Leinster during the World Cup, midfield won’t be as competitive so he should get a good run of matches.
Mark if Darcy doesn’t make the World Cup squad, he’ll play 12 with t’eo at 13. Then Madigan and sexton will be back so the midfield won’t be as easy to get into as you may think
That pop pass from O’Brien
Battle between him and Madigan for the 12 jersey next season.
It’s always to easy to see who coaches ‘just like/don’t like’. When Gopperth played badly it was ignored whereas when Madigan played mediocre or even if Reid played well decisions went against them.
It creates such a poisonous culture as some players start to feel entitled to spots and others feel it doesn’t matter how well they play they won’t get picked. Cody and Fergusson were masters at disregarding players identities and judging on match performance alone. MOC is such a stink manager.