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"really unhappy" Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri snubbed the media after he was
"misinterpreted" and sent off, according to assistant Gianfranco Zola.
Burnley battled hard to earn a point at Stamford Bridge and tempers flared
in stoppage-time as Mateo Kovacic squared up to a number of the visiting
players.
Sarri made his way down the touchline to intervene and referee Kevin Friend
decided to send Sarri off, something which Gianfranco Zola said made Sarri
"really unhappy" and only added to his anger at Burnley's tactics.
"Well I think there was a lot of emotion," Zola said when asked why Sarri
had sent his assistant to do the post-match interview.
"He was really unhappy with a couple of situations on the pitch. He was
unhappy with why he's been sent off, he just went down the line to tell the
players to get on with the game. He's been misunderstood by Kevin.
"I'm unhappy about that, he's unhappy about that. That's why I'm here."
Zola conceded that Sarri often does leave his technical area during games
but that it did not happen against Burnley, even though he appeared to
sarcastically applaud the visitors' bench when Ashley Westwood went down
with cramp.
"When he's on the touchline he moves around a lot," Zola added. "He's very
emotional. Sometimes he comes out. Today he didn't come out too much.
"When he went there Kevin misinterpreted what he wanted to do. We just
wanted to calm our players down. He was trying to help him."
There was a melee at full-time involving members of both benches as well
Chelsea defender Antonio Rudiger, who was not in the squad due to injury.
"It's a football game and there is lots of passion. We are not happy because
of the result and we are not happy because as I said, we felt like didn't
play enough," Zola said.
"We show our emotions because we care, they did the same."
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