Chelsea have been banned from signing players during the next two transfer windows until the end of January 2020.

It followed an investigation into their signing of foreign under-18 players.

Chelsea said they were “very disappointed” and will now appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“It’s very difficult to cover the gap at the moment; we need to work, probably we need to do something from the market,” said Sarri.

“So it’s not easy, because the level of the top two is very, very high.”

Sarri says the club need to buy two players this summer.Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri says it will be “not be easy” to challenge Liverpool and Manchester City next season, after an unsuccessful appeal against Fifa’s transfer ban.

The only change to the original Fifa ban is that the Blues can sign under-16 players from the UK during the suspension period.

“The Fifa appeal committee has decided to partially uphold the appeal lodged by Chelsea,” Fifa said in a statement.

“This ban applied to the club as a whole – with the exception of the women’s and futsal teams – and did not prevent the release of players.”

Fifa said it found breaches in 29 cases out of the 92 investigated.

Chelsea’s fine of £460,000 by world football’s governing body also remains.