Gianfranco Zola admits Chelsea's players came close to rejecting the ideas of Maurizio Sarri during the Italian's sole season in charge at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues legend returned to the club in the summer of 2018 alongside Sarri and was the Italian coach's deputy for the campaign – he even undertook pre-match press conference duties on more than one occasion.
That campaign started well for Chelsea and Sarri, who set a record for the most Premier League games undefeated at the start of a top-flight managerial campaign (12).
But the Blues' form then dipped and come the winter, there were calls for Sarri to be sacked and even jeers aimed towards the head coach by the club's own supporters at Stamford Bridge.
Sarri was able to get Chelsea's campaign back on track after February and the Blues would go on to win the Europa League in Baku, overcoming Arsenal in the final.
But in an open piece written for The Coaches' Voice, Zola has opened up on just how difficult those winter months were for Sarri and the coaching team.
"He (Sarri) is an excellent coach; fantastic at organising the team, planning ahead of matches and setting up training to suit his plans.
"He got the team playing good football – maybe we didn’t start playing well quickly enough at the beginning, but I just think that was down to the fact that his ideas take a bit of time for players to get used to.
"He’s a very demanding coach, with a lot of training, especially tactical training. It can be tiring for the players.
"Also, I think Maurizio took a bit of time to understand how demanding the Premier League is for players.
"There are times when it isn’t possible to train for a match as much as you’d like, because there are so many games and they are all competitive. Sometimes the players need rest.
"There was a section of the season through the winter where we had a few problems, and the players were almost rejecting what we were doing because they were so fatigued.
"In hindsight, we should have recognised this sooner and made changes to help the players. Eventually we did, and we came good together."
Sarri would leave Chelsea after just one year; rejoining Serie A giants Juventus in the summer of 2019 and leading them to the title.
However, he was sacked last summer and replaced by rookie coach Andrea Pirlo. After a year out of the game, Sarri returned to coaching this summer after being named the new boss of Lazio.
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