Maurizio Sarri was questioned on his tactics in England and about the criticism he receives for Sarri-ball. This is what he had to say.
“You are talking only about the system, I think, because I like to play always with the same system, but in every match we change almost everything. In the defensive and offensive phase, especially when we have to build up the action with the defenders.
“I think the press consider only the system, not that we change our way of playing in every match. Of course we like to study the opponents, because of course we need to change something in our defensive phase in relation to the movements of our opponents.”
“I am without reaction because first of all in my mind I want to play our football in the right way. The first target is to play in the right way, to have a great level of organisation, to be able to come out to every problem on the pitch, and I don’t want to change before my team is able to play my football in the perfect way.
“Now I am in the first season in England, and I started to understand some things, not everything at the moment, so now I realise that here it [takes] longer, more difficult. Because the mentality is different.
“For example with an English player it is very easy to have a very good intensity during the training, but it is very difficult to have a session only about tactics. In Italy, it is the opposite; it is very easy to work in tactics, and very difficult to have a very great intensity during the training. It’s different, not worse, not better, just different.
“With English players, but also with the other players, we have a lot of players who have been here a long time so the mentality is an English mentality. I have to understand, and I think I also need to have an English mentality. I think I am improving!”
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