Chelsea 0-2 Real Madrid (0-4 agg.) (Rodrigo 58′, 80′)
Chelsea’s faint hopes of a Champions League miracle were shattered by another 2-0 defeat to Real Madrid, despite the first glimmers of hope after Frank Lampard’s second period.
Despite every reason to be optimistic that there is still room to save this strange and chaotic season, it took a pass from Rodrigo past Trevoch Chalob, a cross to Chelsea rivals Vinicius Jr and another pass to Rodrigo to break the bubble to burst.
When Rodrigo doubled the away lead, Chelsea went back to their old habits: Reece James batted the ball, Thiago Silva failed to challenge him, and Mikhail Mudrik slid hopelessly down the box.
One look at Lampard’s line-up suggests that he misunderstood the order to restore a two-goal lead. However, Chelsea showed for the first time in months what this expensive and unbalanced team could be capable of with a bit more leadership.
A 3-5-2 formation led by Kai Havertz and Conor Gallagher meant Raheem Sterling, Mudrik and Joao Felix started on the bench, but even when those rounds were finally thrown in the last 20 minutes, the familiar problems of a protracted Chelsea are not being resolved. . make a sufficient number of touches with the ball in the penalty area without the recognized attacker returning.
This danger intensified from the moment Rodrigo hit the post as he felt it would only be a matter of time before Real Madrid’s point total increased, no matter how much control they lost.
Chelsea, on the other hand, repeated their mistakes at the Bernabéu a week ago and missed their early momentum when N’Golo Kante missed and Gallagher headed.
Kante has done so much right since his recent return, probably the only player reportedly benefiting from Lampard’s arrival so far. However, it was a blatant miss that risked deciding the tie, and he imitated it again in the second half by missing again.
Although Chelsea continued to suffer from the same attacking problems, something was wrong with the European champions initially. Luka Modric made a quick string of easy passes straight to Gallagher and Mark Cucurella before being easily eliminated by Kante.
Karim Benzema had few chances and couldn’t even find the side net with his best game. Eduardo Camavinga was forced out of the left-back position and James had many opportunities to put pressure on Real Madrid, but his last ball was not a big success.
Stamford Bridge sensed these weaknesses in Carlo Ancelotti’s side and contributed to the disappointment of every missed opportunity. Cuccurella was guilty of one of his worst moments, snatching James’ cross from the edge of the box and heading straight for Thibault Courtois, the former Chelsea goalkeeper who was berated by fans at every turn.
Courtois responded to this appeal from his years here by kissing the Madrid crest on his jersey as the teams went into half time.
Todd Boly won’t storm into the dressing room to call this performance ‘shameful’, as he did after a 2-1 loss to Brighton at the weekend, but he looked as upset as Real Madrid’s goals. With his $500 million in spending and his third manager of the season, he scratched every sheet of Roman Abramovich’s textbook, ending his first season without a trophy and seemingly nothing to play by mid-April.
Fair or not, Chelsea fans will thank Lampard, not Boeli, for the green light this quarter-final.
At the very least, there were promising signs that were long forgotten by the end of the Graham Potter era. Enzo Fernandez, Kante and Mateo Kovacic are capable of dictating the pace, while James and Cucurella provided real breadth, rather than being stretched out by Real Madrid’s wide strikers like in the first leg.
Admittedly, Vinicius was still struggling with the weekend, which made the evening much more comfortable on that flank. Chalobah did a great job blocking the Brazilian when he hit the target.
Chelsea’s night could also have been easier if Eder Militao had been sent off, having already received a yellow card for hitting Chalob’s heel near Real Madrid’s penalty area. Lampard’s apoplexy was ignored as he gathered the last energy of this season that was worth spending.
With the departure of Chelsea from Europe now there is nothing to look forward to, but playing for the first time, it seemed that they had nothing to lose, playing with a small but proud blow to the nerves.
A less generous interpretation is that Chelsea were at their best, or the best we’ve seen in a long time, and it still wasn’t enough.
Source: I News
I’m Dave Martin, and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. As a part of my work, I write for 24 News Reporters, covering mostly sports-related topics. With more than 5 years of experience as a journalist, I have written numerous articles on various topics to provide accurate information to readers.