Richard Buxton: Emery and Sarri need to address personnel changes
Win in the London Derby will buy time for either Emery or Sarri but, to do that, players have to be dropped
For Chelsea as much as Arsenal, things will only deteriorate before they start to improve.
Just 16 days ago, the sides faced off in the International Champions Cup; events in Dublin had suggested that it was Unai Emery who appeared to have the upper hand on Maurizio Sarri, despite the pair having similarly limited periods at the helm with their new charges.
Pre-season, however, remains football's greatest outlier.
In successive weeks, Manchester City have torn through both sides' promising new eras with comfortable 2-0 victories.
| CHELSEA | ARSENAL |
Yet it was the opening-day humbling administered to the Gunners which has provoked the stronger debate about their respective progress.
Moving on from a footballing purgatory under Arsene Wenger was always going to pose difficulties to Emery's plans to reintroduce the Gunners to playing with positivity.
During Wenger's final years, supporters at the Emirates Stadium fantasised that their team were still an exquisite antithesis to opponents who they claimed preferred to play direct. With heavy pressing and an openness to playing out from the back, they may finally have that wish.
But implementing Emery's methods will not be a flawless process, evidenced by his side's penchant for attempting to play it safe despite a new-found emphasis placed on passing.
Personnel changes, similarly, have not been enforced quickly enough; Petr Cech's starring role remains unchallenged despite Bernd Leno's feted signing, while Granit Xhaka kept Lucas Torreira out of the line-up before his trademark indiscipline invariably forced Emery's hand.
Indecision over a first-choice striker will also continue to plague the former Paris Saint-Germain coach, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette still vying for a starring role in his three-man attack instead of logic allowing them to operate in tandem.
Should he be again selected at Stamford Bridge, Cech's return to his former stomping ground on Sunday morning (Singapore time), having routinely floundered against City last weekend, has the potential to at least accelerate one changing of the guard for the north Londoners.
Trophy-winning pedigree drew Arsenal to Emery, while the opposite saw Roman Abramovich appoint Sarri.
The Italian has dampened suggestions of a swift return to the thrill-seeking brand of play which elevated him to prominence during three seasons with Napoli.
If, like Emery, he needlessly persists with unsuitable personnel, then the transition to "Sarri-ball" may take longer than first anticipated.
Alvaro Morata's inability to find the target against Huddersfield Town reflected a poor return of just one goal in his 14 previous EPL matches.
Sarri has made no secret of his contempt for a player whose club-record arrival from Real Madrid last summer was supposed to plug the gap of Diego Costa's inevitable defection back to the Spanish capital.
Instead, he has become as indispensable as his current ratio suggests.
Eden Hazard's flexibility to play as an auxiliary striker would afford Chelsea greater speed in their forward line and also represents a more viable option against Arsenal than Morata or even Olivier Giroud, who already usurped the Spain international in the Community Shield.
One Real misfit may have posed one headache to Sarri, but another can help remedy others.
Nullifying Arsenal's attack will come easy from midfield with Jorginho and N'Golo Kante, but fashioning opportunities from the same area is tailor-made for Mateo Kovacic.
No quick fixes became the Chelsea manager's message in attempting to harness expectations. He is naive to think that patience will become a virtue at the Bridge. History suggests that sooner rather than later, Sarri's ideology must begin to fully take shape.
Defeating their London rivals will help convince Abramovich to give him the time to get it right.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
