{"id":2336,"date":"2019-02-28T10:28:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T10:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.incirliseviye.com\/2019\/02\/28\/its-a-message-to-the-group-sarri-explains-reasoning-for-dropping-kepa-2\/"},"modified":"2019-02-28T10:28:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T10:28:47","slug":"its-a-message-to-the-group-sarri-explains-reasoning-for-dropping-kepa-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=2336","title":{"rendered":"&#039;It&#039;s a message to the group&#039; &#8211; Sarri explains reasoning for dropping Kepa"},"content":{"rendered":"<div> The Chelsea goalkeeper was not handed a start against Tottenham, and the coach says it was his decision to bench the Spaniard <\/div>\n<div>   <\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Maurizio Sarri says the choice to not start Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga for Wednesday&#8217;s match against Tottenham was a &#8220;message to the group&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The Spanish star has come under fire for refusing to be substituted in Sunday&#8217;s Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester City.<\/p>\n<p>With the match inching towards a penalty shootout, Sarri was set to turn to Willy Caballero, who had featured for City from 2014-17.<\/p>\n<div>  <span>Article continues below<\/span> <\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Editors&#039; Picks<\/h3>\n<p>    Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea &amp; Pedro impress in Spurs win    Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show    Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over    Man City monitoring Barcelona &amp; Chelsea target Jovic    <\/p><\/div>\n<div> <\/div>\n<div>   <\/div>\n<p>But Kepa waved his manager off, electing to remain on the pitch before City edged Chelsea 4-3 on penalty kicks.<\/p>\n<p>And now, Kepa has been excluded from the club&#8217;s first match since the incident with Sarri saying it was his decision to start Caballero in his stead against Spurs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a choice. It&#8217;s a message for my group. We are a group &#8211; not 25 players. It is my choice,&#8221; Sarri said on <em>BT Sport<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Kepa had started all 26 of Chelsea&#8217;s Premier League matches this season as well as four Carabao Cup games and six Europa League ties.<\/p>\n<p>The goalkeeper arrived from Athletic Club last summer for\u00a0a record fee, replacing Thibaut Courtois as the Belgian moved to Real Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>In the aftermath of Sunday&#8217;s\u00a0incident, Kepa came out to say it was never his intention to go against Sarri while adding that he understood it wasn&#8217;t the best image to portray.<\/p>\n<p>Sarri, meanwhile, clarified the incident was a &#8220;misunderstanding&#8221; while saying that he hoped to move on quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Still, the goalkeeper was fined a week&#8217;s wages for the ordeal with the money going to charity.<\/p>\n<p>Sarri&#8217;s choice was backed by former Chelsea midfielder Joe Cole, who agreed with the decision to drop the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He has got it\u00a0spot\u00a0on, we were all talking earlier and he has absolutely done the right thing. He has asserted that he is the leader,&#8221; Cole said on <em>BT Sport<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the message to the team. He will live or die by it tonight. The pressure is on Willy Caballero to perform.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The message in the long term is this is my team and my group. No one is going to step out of line and I applaud him for it. It is a great decision.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>While Caballero earned the nod against Tottenham, it remains to be seen if Kepa will earn a recall in time for Chelsea&#8217;s next match, a visit to Fulham on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chelsea goalkeeper was not handed a start against Tottenham, and the coach says it was his decision to bench the Spaniard Maurizio Sarri says the choice to not start Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga for Wednesday&#8217;s match against Tottenham was a &#8220;message to the group&#8221;. The Spanish star has come under fire for refusing to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/onhee.com\/?p=2336\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#039;It&#039;s a message to the group&#039; &#8211; Sarri explains reasoning for dropping Kepa&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-premier-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}