Sarri hints Kepa will be axed after Wembley chaos to send a message to the players

Editorial Team 6 years ago

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In the EFL Cup finals at Wembley, goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga defied the Chelsea Manager and refused to come off when Sarri tried to replace him with penalty shot stopping expert Willy Caballero. Man City went on to win the game in penalties 4-3 with Kepa unable to save Aguero’s tame penalty.

The Manager tried to downplay the incident at the first press-conference by claiming the situation was due to a “big misunderstanding” but the club fined the goalkeeper his weekly wages for the unprofessional behaviour. Now, the manager has clearly contradicted his earlier statement by admitting that the decision to substitute the keeper was partly due to the knowledge of the penalty-saving skills displayed by Caballero in Man City colours.

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Speaking about the importance of sending a message to the players, Maurizio Sarri said “I want to send a message to my group. The message could be Kepa is on the pitch, or Kepa is out the pitch. I have to decide what is better for my group”.

The Manager further went on and spoke of consequences for the player’s actions. “He made a mistake. A big mistake. There are some consequences. If the consequence is to play, he has to be ready to play. If the consequence is the bench, he has to be ready to go to the bench”.

The Italian also took time to praise his substitute keeper “Willy Caballero is a very good goalkeeper and he’s a great man. He is a point of reference in the dressing-room, of course, for his personality and for his behaviour. So I think that he has the maturity to be ready for everything”.

With the entire saga taking a twist, it remains to be seen if the under-pressure Chelsea Manager will actually punish Kepa by axing him for the next few games and send a strong message to the dressing room.

Editorial Team

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LosMejor's Editorial Team includes a team of experts who cover the UEFA Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and the Carabao Cup. The Editorial team is headed by Deepak Selvan.