Sarri: I may give up smoking at Chelsea

[PHOTO: COURTESY]

Maurizio Sarri has promised to give up smoking while he is in charge of Chelsea.

The chain-smoking Chelsea boss admits he finds it difficult not to reach for a cigarette especially during a “horrible 15 minutes” against Arsenal.

But Sarri, who has been pictured on the touchline holding a cigarette butt and a packet of fags to ease the craving, has vowed to kick the habit.

Sarri said: “I am going to stop. Just for one or two years, then I will start again.”

[PHOTO: COURTESY]

That is probably not saying much about how long Sarri expects to remain at Chelsea, but the club is hardly renowned for sticking with managers.

However, Sarri’s style - christened “Sarri ball” - was taking shape against Arsenal and the ex-Napoli boss says it is just a matter of time before his players get used to it.

But did he need a cigarette when Arsenal came back from 2-0 down? Sarri said: “No, no, I just needed the first half to end! I needed half time.

"I can speak about the other 75, I think that’s better. Because I remember the good things instead of the worst.

“In quality, we are going very well. In quantity, we have to improve. I think that’s normal. We start to work altogether two weeks ago so now my target is to play 90 minutes like the first 25.

“We did very well for 75 minutes of the 90. Inside there were 15 horrible minutes. We lost distances, we were not able to press, we were not able to defend. We were really in trouble.

“So I think in the second half we did really well in the mental point of view because it was very hard to answer to the last part of the first half.”