“Major reason Zidane should take over at Chelsea”

Arsenal legend, Robert Pires has stated that former Real Madrid boss, Zinedine Zidane should replace Chelsea manager, Maurizio Sarri, at Stamford Bridge in order to tackle the “player power” problem at the West London club.

Pires stated this following Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over Fulham in the Premier League encounter on Sunday.

“It’s a very strange situation with Chelsea and how they treat their managers,” Pires told Bwin.

“Sarri is a very good manager and he performed very well with Napoli, but it’s hard to see him at the club next season. There appears to be a lot of player power at Chelsea that he is struggling to overcome like many have before him.

“I think Zidane would be a very good appointment at Chelsea. He would demand respect from the Chelsea players and control the dressing room as a result of everything he has achieved both on the pitch as a player and on the bench as a manager.

“He’s a winner and a warrior. He’s had great success in the Champions League which is attractive to the Chelsea owner. It would be very good news for the Premier League if Zidane moved to England.”

Pires added: “It was a very strange situation with Sarri and Kepa at Wembley.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before. Kepa refused to leave the pitch against City.

“It was perhaps a misunderstanding, but it was very poorly handled and would have definitely been on the players’ minds when they were heading for penalties.

“We’ll never know how much it impacted them, but it also took attention away from a much-improved performance by Chelsea.

“It’s very important to respect the manager’s decision, even if we sometimes don’t agree with it as a player. We need to show respect and support our team-mates too otherwise the dressing room can be a very difficult place.

“Sarri is in a difficult situation where he needs to get positive results to save his job. He might have reacted differently and more severely if he was more comfortable in his own future at Chelsea.

“I expect Kepa to continue as the club’s first-choice goalkeeper and his career will carry on as though it never happened. He can consider himself lucky, but it reveals a lot about the player power in the Chelsea dressing room that he felt he could do that at Wembley. I expect Sarri to still be at the club until the end of the season and then they will decide.”