It still seems a weird sight, albeit a welcome one though I must say, to see Gianfranco Zola sat alongside Maurizio Sarri, in a managerial capacity, at Chelsea Football Club.
Last night, following Chelsea’s win against Derby County, in the Carabao Cup, Sarri left it to the popular Sardinian to talk to the media after the game.
Gianfranco, naturally pleased at seeing Chelsea make the last-eight of the competition, had a few words, as reported by the BBC, had this to say about what was, in all honesty, a poor defensive display:
“It was a tough game. Derby were excellent. They created us more problems. Our defence wasn’t as good as other times. But most of the problems were created by them.”
With Sarri opting to replace the complete back-four, and the goalkeeper, there was always going to be a lack of cohesion, but the tome was set, for the evening, when Gary Cahill’s mistake resulted in Derby’s Jack Marriott equalising after Chelsea had taken an early lead.
Thankfully, although good, Derby didn’t have the attacking class to fully capitalise on some dodgy defending.
Gianfranco also spoke about the last ten to fifteen minutes when, with Chelsea leading 3-2, Derby County pushed for the equaliser that would have forced the game into a penalty shoot-out, further adding:
“We were in control until about 10-15 minutes to go. In those moments we thought about scoring too much. When you open up against a team with that quality, it is 50-50. We were lucky on occasions.”
Yes, we were lucky and on another night we could have befallen the same fate as that suffered by Manchester United, in the previous round, let’s hope we haven’t used up all our luck as we head towards a possible Wembley appearance in the final.