Tottenham ended Chelsea’s unbeaten run at Wembley on Saturday by stunning the visitors with a 3-1 victory.
Sarri’s men had no answers as Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min got on the scoresheet in a handsome win for the north London outfit.
Ross Barkley was left on the bench for the visitors – a decision which confused BBC Sport pundit Upson.
And Upson thinks that omitting Barkley was a big error on Sarri’s part as it meant that Kante was played further forward when he doesn’t have natural attacking instincts.
“It was quite interesting that Sarri went to Wembley with Jorginho continuing to play on his own as a sitting midfielder when he has someone like Kante to call upon,” Upson said on Match of the Day 2.
“We know how good Kante is at shielding his defence but this season he has been asked to play further forward, alongside Mateo Kovacic, with Jorginho behind them.
“It has obviously been working pretty well – Chelsea were unbeaten before this weekend – but some of the flaws in that set-up were exposed by Tottenham, who used Dele [Alli] to sit on Jorginho to stop him from dictating play, and also attacked the spaces between the Chelsea midfielder and his back four.
“To stop that happening again, Sarri could easily flip things so that he has a deeper pairing of Kante and Jorginho with, say, Ross [Barkley] operating in front of them.
“I don’t know why Barkley did not start against Spurs because he has been in great form and having him in the team would allow Kante to focus on what he is best at.
“Kante is better off in the engine room because he likes to win tackles or dispossess people and then burst forward, as opposed to being more advanced anyway and receiving the ball higher up the pitch.”
Sarri was very critical of his side’s display, as he said: “I am disappointed because we played very badly.
“I think we played very badly in all directions – physically, mentally, technically and tactically.
“I knew we had some problems and with this performance today it was clear to everybody we have problems to solve.
“I think in the last three or four matches we have started not really very well.
“Today I did not like anybody.”
Tottenham are in Champions League action on Wednesday against Inter Milan at Wembley (8pm).