The banners bearing the names of the Chelsea greats in the stands at Stamford Bridge are starting to look a little faded and worn. Frank Lampard, John Terry and Didier Drogba will always be legends in this part of West London, but this club is not what it once was.
So said Drogba himself in the introduction to an evening where modern Chelsea’s ambitions to stage a grand comeback to the Champions League stemmed from a well-known shortcoming. A lot of effort and absolutely no goals.
Drogba, the great Ivorian striker who scored so often for Chelsea, said on French TV that he no longer recognized the club. That’s strong, but it’s easy to see his point. The strength of character, fortitude and reliability of quality that ran through so many of the Roman Abramovich years is no more.
This defeat pretty much marks the end of the great Lampard experiment, at the second time I ask. Brought back to try and keep the Chelsea dressing room stable and get results, it’s a mission already over. Four games, four defeats and one goal. There is no miracle coming in Europe and there are no signs of it in the Premier League either.
Yet Chelsea are a club crying out for something that Lampard and his ilk once represented. In the second half, Lampard made a triple substitution as Raheem Sterling, Joao Felix and Mykhailo Mudryk came on at the same time. Those three together cost around £150 million. But when Real ran their second goal into the net with ten minutes to go, it was clearer than ever that it’s not just money that will save this club and this team.
Chelsea are facing the reality that there will be no European football next season after being knocked out by Real Madrid
Chelsea seems to have lost her identity and anything seems possible from here
The Frank Lampard experiment – tried for the second time – failed miserably and it’s a mystery where they go from here
No, it’s an identity Chelsea needs right now. We were told they were making a new one when co-owner Todd Boehly praised his own long-term strategy for hiring Graham Potter last September. It was all about the future, he said, but that only lasted until he felt the present was distasteful. That marked the end of Potter and walked Lampard for his second stint as coach. Suddenly Chelsea were a club whose chosen way forward was to look backwards.
And all of that leads Chelsea to here, which frankly is nowhere. The team Lampard walked back to greet was vastly different from the one he left when he was sacked in January 2021. when he was in charge of Everton. Meaningful? Try to imagine what it’s like to actually be in this football club right now.
Chelsea spent money, but it didn’t help them. Not yet anyway. What they really need right now and going into this summer is an idea of who they are and, more importantly, what they really want to be.
The club seems a long way from the days of Lampard, Didier Drogba and other heroes
Boehly currently looks like he could be a hindrance to that. He made a dejected figure in the stands as Real Madrid rolled in their two goals here. Since he’s thrown so much financially and emotionally at his project thus far, it’s pertinent to wonder if he really has a compelling plan for what he’s going to do next.
Here Chelsea were progressive for an hour, until Real scored the first goal. Lampard’s team played with aggression and purpose and some character and their supporters fully supported them. But at the same time, their most glaring modern flaw was written right through this performance.
It’s hard to look at Chelsea without thinking about what they would look like with a real striker playing down the middle. Someone who worries teams, stretches teams, holds up the game and creates space and opportunities for those around him. And the more you think about it, the more negligent it seems that they don’t have one.
Chelsea created three good chances in the game, but were penalized for their productivity
It’s uncertain where the club will go from now on – with a number of underperforming stars on bloated contracts
Chelsea created three very good chances while this match was scoreless. If one of them had gone in, this tie would have become very open indeed. But two fell to a tenacious midfielder N’Golo Kante and one to a defender, Marc Cucurella. Not surprisingly, none of them were taken.
Kante actually played a decent game and did what he was paid to do much further back in his team’s formation. His return from long-term injury has helped Chelsea, even if results have not improved since Potter’s sacking a month ago.
The Frenchman is now 32 and was Chelsea’s longest-serving player in this line-up with nearly seven seasons of service. Reece James, meanwhile, has graduated from the academy. It’s this kind of longevity that Chelsea lacks. Lampard once spent 13 years here. Terry gave a year shy of two decades to his club. Drogba was here for eight seasons in his first spell, while Ashley gave Cole an identical part of his career.
That Chelsea – Abramovich’s Chelsea – wasn’t perfect, but it knew what it was. And it worked. This version? All we do know is that it’s not what it said it would be. Honestly, it feels like anything could happen from here.