It would be fair to determine that it is far from easy to totally impress Maurizio Sarri. Olivier Giroud might be feeling this to full effect after hearing Sarri’s interview before their super Sunday clash with Everton.

Sarri, 60, has urged Chelsea’s attacking players to become cleverer with their movement off the ball and help starlets, Eden Hazard and Gonzalo Higuain who have both not been as prolific as they both would have liked in recent weeks.

Dynamo Kiev game overlooked? 

The demands of Sarri are intimidatingly high and may also be seen as slightly unjust. The quotes emerge not long after Chelsea’s emphatic win over Dynamo Kiev in which Giroud scored a perfect hat-trick built almost entirely on the premise of clever movement off the ball.

Combine this with Willian’s exemplary performance and Callum Hudson-Odoi’s defence-splitting run and goalkeeper splitting finish makes it hard to understand where the Chelsea boss wants his attackers, certainly in recent weeks, to improve.

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Cry for help?

Perhaps it serves as nothing more than a call for help after Hazard and Higuain have scored just once in their last six appearances. In the press conference he told Sky Sports:

“‘Sometimes we’ve played with very good quality in the offensive phase, and sometimes not,’ said Sarri. We started to defend in a very good way in the last month, I think. Now we need to start in the offensive phase to play every match with the same ideas.

"At the moment, we are not able to do this because, sometimes, we are without movement without the ball ‘Sometimes we didn’t put the ball into the box very well or attack the spaces behind the opponents’ back-line very well. ‘We need to have consistency on this.”

The race for top four

The cry for help comes ahead of Chelsea’s crucial game against Everton in their bid to earn themselves a top-four place and guaranteed Champions League football next season.

It is also expected that Giroud, despite his wonderful performance, will start the game on the sidelines and play second fiddle to Higuain who is in desperate need of a goal himself.

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