Maurizio Sarri, Chelsea Sustained the Worst Premier League defeat in their history against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City on Sunday.

MANCHESTER, England — As he trudged, wordlessly, away from the field, away from the crowd, away from the burning humiliation, Maurizio Sarri looked like a man who knew. He is not the first in his position to have worn that look, to have made that walk, to sense that, sooner or later, Chelsea has a decision to make.

In these circumstances, that ordinarily means only one thing. Historically, when Chelsea is presented with the choice of whether to fire a manager or not, it tends to act as if it has no choice at all.

Roman Abramovich has fired managers early and fired them late. He has fired them after winning the Premier League title but not the Champions League; he has fired them after winning the Champions League but not the Premier League. He has fired them against the fans’ wishes, and he has fired them to their intense relief. He has fired them for less than being beaten, 6-0, by Manchester City, as Sarri’s Chelsea was on Sunday, and he has fired them for more.

Abramovich has been through 13 permanent managers since he arrived in English soccer in 2003. By this stage of this season, Abramovich — or, more pertinently, those who run Chelsea at his behest — knows the signs. Not just the obvious ones: the back-to-back collapses away from home, first at Bournemouth and now in Manchester; the inexorable slide down the Premier League table, initially out of the title race and now, usurped by a resurgent Manchester United, out of the Champions League qualifying places.