Maurizio Sarri is not a happy man. He saw his Chelsea team blow the chance to go 9 points ahead of Arsenal and instead saw that lead cut to three points.
Goals from Alexander Lacazette and Laurent Koscielny was enough to give the Gunners a win against the Blues in a match where Chelsea offered precious little going forward.
It was so bad that Chelsea were restricted to zero shots on goal in the first half and although they were better in the second half, they never really looked like scoring.
Sarri blamed this on the mentality of the players, saying that after the Tottenham game he had hoped they were over it but that they weren’t.
“I have to say that I’m extremely angry because this defeat was down to mentality,” Sarri told the press.
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“They were far more determined than we were and I can’t accept that. It was similar to Spurs – I spoke to the players and I thought it was solved.
“I want to talk about tactics but it would appear this group of players are very difficult to motivate.
“I think when you see this type of game where one team is more determined then you can’t talk about tactics. Their level of determination was much better than ours throughout the game.”
Sarri was asked why he couldn’t seem to get the best out of the Chelsea players and to this he said: “That’s a difficult question to answer.
“It seems that they’re not aggressive enough mentally – that’s down to their personalities and that’s difficult to change.
“You have to influence them and that could be down to a new player coming in or one of the old heads taking control.
“I don’t think a player at this level can be afraid to face up to their responsibilities. The best thing that can happen is that the players and I speak very openly.
“I am the person responsible for the players and it’s important for them to have the right attitude. Ig they can’t achieve that then maybe they shouldn’t be playing at this level.”
Chelsea now face the prospect of a must-win match against Tottenham on Thursday in the EFL cup in which they lost the first leg to a Harry Kane penalty.