Ballack Blames Chelsea Teammates For Kepa

By Joshua Walters

Chelsea EFL Cup final game against Manchester City witnessed a bust-up between Kepa and his manager Maurizio Sarri as the former refused to be substituted.

Sarri was left furious on the sidelines when Kepa refused to be replaced by Willy Caballero a minute before penalty shootouts.

Ballack, who spent four years at Chelsea, believes the Spanish goalkeeper should have respected the instructions as he also chides the other players for their refusal to impress on the goalkeeper to leave the field. 

Though Sarri disclosed after the match that the cause of the whole squabble was due to a misunderstanding of the goalkeeper’s condition, Ballack believes the whole scene could have been resolved by the Chelsea players.

“It was surprising, I’ve never seen anything like that before.” the German told talkSPORT.

“When your number is shown, you must respect the manager’s decision.

“I was a bit surprised by the reaction of the team. Normally if a team-mate is not leaving the pitch and is frustrated for a certain reason, and obviously this was a really important reason to make a quick sub just before the penalties, you go over and you try to speak with him to get him to follow the instructions.

“But David (Luiz), I don’t know what he was saying to him, but he’s a key player in that team and he’s a leader, so it surprises me.”

“It was a not a good picture for Chelsea.”

“The board has to say something because it’s really, really important the players respect the coach and respect each other and something shouldn’t happen like that.”

“It was a shame because they played a good game against a really strong team and they deserved something, but now we’re all talking about something like this.”