Chelsea 'problem solver' Ruben Loftus-Cheek earning role after tactical improvement, says Maurizio Sarri

1/25
Vaishali Bhardwaj2 December 2018

Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri believes Ruben Loftus-Cheek's tactical improvement has helped him solve many problems in the past few weeks.

Loftus-Cheek started the season behind Mateo Kovacic and Ross Barkley in the midfield pecking order but has shown steady improvement under Sarri this term.

After scoring a Europa League hat-trick against BATE Borisov in late October, Loftus-Cheek netted his first Premier League goal of the season away to Burnley.

He made that two in the league on Sunday after coming on as a second-half substitute and scoring in the 82nd minute.

And Sarri says he has been impressed with the 22-year-old's showings of late, telling reporters: "In the last three weeks, he's solved me problems.

"I was really very happy after the last match in the Europa League because I think he played the best performance from the tactical point of view.

"I was really very happy. Today I saw Kovacic a bit tired, so I put him on the pitch without problems. I was sure about his impact in the match."

The 2-0 win over Fulham came a week after a then-unbeaten Chelsea side were outclassed by London rivals Tottenham at Wembley.

Sarri made 10 changes for Chelsea's subsequent game, a 4-0 win at home to PAOK Salonika, but admitted he wanted to give his usual starters a chance to make amends on Sunday.

"I think, today, we were a bit nervous," Sarri said. "Of course, it wasn't easy the days after Tottenham for me and the players, but I think that we have thought too much about that match. We lost a match after three and a half months. It can happen. So today it was important to react.

"But I think the team reacted really very well in the Europa League. Today was more important, of course, and I think in the minds of the players there was only the result.”

"I think in Tottenham, 11 players played very badly. So I thought today it was natural to give them another chance.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in