Bournemouth 4 Chelsea 0
Maurizio Sarri jeered by Chelsea fans as Blues lose grip on fourth with heavy defeat at Bournemouth
Bournemouth storm to impressive victory as Chelsea are run riot on the south coast
WHEN the moment came, and Chelsea’s support finally turned on Maurizio Sarri, their words were harsh and probably unfair.
Yet they were still stinging and significant.
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Just as David Brooks had handed Bournemouth a 2-0 lead, Chelsea’s manager hooked his new signing Gonzalo Higuain and replaced him with Olivier Giroud.
The travelling fans booed and chanted “You don’t know what you’re doing!”
Higuain, the Argentinian striker on loan from Juventus, had been ineffectual on his Premier League debut.
And Sarri, the most studious and methodical of footballing philosophers, always knows exactly what he is doing.
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Yet the laborious and over-elaborate passing football known as Sarri-ball has been frustrating Chelsea fans more and more in recent weeks.
And this thrashing, their worst result under Sarri, has tipped them over the edge.
Five league defeats in two months has left Chelsea’s hopes of Champions League qualification in severe jeopardy.
Bournemouth had lost 11 of their previous 15 matches - so this was a horror of a result for the Blues.
Chelsea fans singing ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ to Sarri after Higuain is substituted
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Eddie Howe’s Cherries were cute and cunning, executing each of their goals with a flourish - Josh King scoring twice and laying on another for Brooks before sub Charlie Daniels completed the second-half rout with his first touch.
But the combination of an attack lacking punch and a defence prone to brain-fades meant that all of Chelsea’s possession counted for nought.
While Higuain was operating alongside Eden Hazard for the first time, after the Belgian had missed the FA Cup defeat of Sheffield Wednesday, Callum Hudson-Odoi failed to make Chelsea’s eighteen, in the first match since he was barred from joining Bayern Munich.
It did not feel like an ideal opening gambit in Chelsea’s bid to persuade the teenager to sign a new contract at the Bridge.
Chelsea turned up in a washed-out change kit in the shade of ‘ocean blue’ - presumably based on one of the more polluted stretches of the North Sea - and their football was mostly bland and colourless too.
If the outfit was unfamiliar, their football started off in characteristic fashion - with plenty of passing back and forth and little end product.
David Luiz was floored by a Josh King piledriver which caught him on the side of the head and poleaxed the Brazilian like a heavyweight boxer caught with a knock-out punch.
Yet Luiz was back on his feet surprisingly swiftly and Chelsea soon enjoyed their best moment of the first half when Pedro swung in a cross, Higuain failed to connect but Mateo Kovacic arrived late with a header that Artur Boruc tipped onto the underside of the bar.
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With the naked eye, it looked as though it could have crossed the line but goal-line technology was having none of it.
Bournemouth barely had a kick for half an hour but Howe’s men then bega to threaten on the break.
First Ryan Fraser squared for Brooks, who took a complete air-shot.
Then Brooks dispossessed Hazard and ran 50 yards only to see his shot comfortably saved by Kepa Arrizabalaga.
Cesar Azpilicueta tested Boruc with a 20-yard curler pushed out by the Pole.
And then the Cherries were breaking again, King feeding Junior Stanislas, who could not evade Kepa.
So there had been signs of Bournemouth cranking into life at the end of the first half - and within two minutes of the restart, they were in front with a gem of a team goal.
Fraser played a cheeky lofted pass to Brooks, who cut back for King to lash his shot into roof of net, giving Kepa little chance.
Sarri had been animated all night - a fidgeting mix of anger, frustration and nicotine withdrawal - and now he was gesticulating wildly like an ill-tempered windmill.
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Kante did not improve his move soon after when he failed to connect after being played clean through by Pedro’s clever pass.
And on 63 minutes, Sarri’s evening was properly wrecked, with a spot of fairly typical doziness from Luiz to blame.
Luiz, who often defends with the blase air of a man who’s gone out for the evening with his patio doors wide open, lost possession to Brooks, then failed to nick it back.
King snapped up the loose ball and released Brooks with a pass.
The Wales international could have gone straight for goal but with a blend of coolness and sadism is decided to embarrass Luiz again, twisting inside and drilling past Kepa.
Sarri immediately replaced Higuain with Giroud - the substitution which enraged Chelsea’s supporters.
The controversial substitution made no difference, as Nathaniel Clyne threaded a pass down the right and Stanislas squared for King who foxed Kepa by stroking the ball back across goal for 3-0.
Then deep in injury-time, Adam Smith sent over a free-kick for new arrival Daniels to crash home a header.
It was as cool and calculated as Sarri would love Chelsea to be.
But even the inclusion of Higuain, a 31-year-old who had enjoyed a record season under Sarri at Napoli, could make no difference for the Blues.
He knows what he is doing, all right. It’s just that the end results are nowhere near good enough.
Roman Abramovich is notorious for his impatience. Much more of this and Sarri will be philosophising his way to a P45.
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