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Sarri wants more tears from Morata after his emotional celebration against Vidi

The Chelsea striker ended his goal drought by scoring the winner in the Europa League.

Maurizio Sarri wants to see tears from Alvaro Morata after the striker’s winner in Chelsea’s 1-0 Europa League victory over Hungarian champions Vidi on Thursday night.

Morata missed a host of chances in the opening Group L win at PAOK in Greece two weeks ago and spurned a glorious opportunity in the first half at Stamford Bridge.

Sarri praised an improved all-round display from the 25-year-old, recalled into the Spain squad earlier on Thursday, which was capped by the winner 20 minutes from time and an emotional celebration.

“If after a goal he wants to cry, I hope to see him cry very often,” the Chelsea head coach said.

“It’s very important for him to score. I think it’s very important for him to play a very good match. He played a very good match.

“It’s very important for him to play for the team, like this evening. I think Alvaro can restart from this performance.”

It was just Morata’s second goal of the season – his first was in August’s Premier League defeat of Arsenal – and Sarri reiterated the striker’s importance to the team.

“At the moment we have Alvaro and (Olivier) Giroud, but we have to play every three days for a long time, I think, I hope,” Sarri added.

“And so he’s a very important player for us, for our season.”

Chelsea were wasteful in front of goal for a second successive Europa League game, but Sarri was more concerned by the chances presented to Vidi.

Vidi’s Mate Patkai (left) went close to scoring for the visitors
Vidi’s Mate Patkai (left) went close to scoring for the visitors (Nigel French/PA)

He added: “We have created a lot of goal opportunities but we have conceded two, three opportunities to the opponents.

“I am not worried if we don’t score for 45 minutes. I was not happy, but I think it can happen. I was worried about the fact that we have conceded three goal opportunities to the opponent, for our mistakes.”

For Vidi it was a second loss, after an opening defeat to Chelsea’s next opponents BATE Borisov of Belarus.

Vidi boss Marko Nikolic had “mixed feelings”, expressing pride at his side’s performance but frustration at a failure to upset the Blues.

Nikolic said: “I have mixed feelings. I tried to introduce our team (at the pre-match media conference) that we are a warrior team, that we would try to compete here against Chelsea.

“I want to congratulate my players and say they played a very good match.

“We missed too many chances in a match like this, an away match against Chelsea.”

Gary Cahill was fortunate not to concede a first-half foul and a potential red card for a challenge on the edge of the Chelsea area.

“It was a questionable decision for sure,” Nikolic said.

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