Jose Mourinho has backed Maurizio Sarri to be a far bigger success next season as his philosophy begins to take hold at Chelsea.

Sarri has struggled to translate his 'Sarri-ball' approach honed at Napoli to great success at Stamford Bridge, with the Blues lying sixth with 10 league games to play.

Mourinho, who also has experience in Italian football, sympathises with Sarri and his struggles to adapt but is confident a second season will see an improvement.

"Italy is not an easy country," he told beIN Sports. "You learn how to deal with the press; it is very specialised, they have top commentators [with] great experience in football, the journalists are also very clever in using the emotion of football in Italy.

"Maurizio comes to England with more than 20 years of experience in football. I think he's ready, the main difficulty is imposing his style of play which is the way he always played with Napoli.

"The Premier League is the [league] where you sometimes have to lose your identity a bit to adapt to the characteristics of the game and the opponents.

"He will learn in time, the second season will be better for him."