Former Chelsea defender Wayne Bridge shared his thoughts on Maurizio Sarri's first season at the helm of the Blues.
Possibly, the 4th-place fight is not something that was expected after a successful start of the campaign.
Bridge noted that the amount of challenges Sarri's faced is staggering, and some of them are of his own making.
In particular, he has some problems with asserting his authority over the players, he said.
"I am surprised that the manager is still at Chelsea, to be honest," Bridge confessed. "Especially after what has happened at Chelsea, you have had the goalkeeper undermining his manager where he should have been dragged off. The fans aren't happy with the style of football.
"You have the issue with Jorginho and Kante. Are they getting the best out of each other? Kante is good at getting around the pitch, but his final ball isn't suited to playing further forward and fans aren't happy with that. Hudson-Odoi and Loftus-Cheek maybe should have played more and sooner.
"You have got a situation where they and Man United seem to be on the slide. The ownership of the club has entered an awkward spell. Something is going to have to change, you would look to transfers but you worry about the ban.
"Could another manager get more out of the players and make them a better unit? Perhaps, but I still would worry that they don't have enough to compete with Liverpool or Man City. You look at those two teams and with the age of their players and they will add to it."
