AS FRANK LAMPARD sat in front of the media yesterday in the bowels of the Santiago Bernabeu, unable to categorically deny that he was appointed Chelsea caretaker manager on the word of James Corden, you realised that yes, Todd Boehly is the great disruptor he promised to be.
The only problem being all he has so far disrupted is his own club.
Chelsea’s first-leg Champions League defeat at Real Madrid tonight was a testament to Boehly’s epic shambles. A 2-0 defeat after the sending off of Ben Chilwell was as much as Chelsea could have hoped for from a night in which they were utterly overwhelmed by a Real Madrid side whose only flaw was profligacy.
Tonight’s limp, shapeless performance from Chelsea was a world away from this very day last year, when Thomas Tuchel led the then defending champions to a thrilling, dominant performance and an extra-time win on the night. That they were knocked narrowly on aggregate owed to their mistakes in the first-leg defeat.
But Boehly, in his infinite wisdom, sacked the brilliant Tuchel in favour of Graham Potter, who we were told on a weekly basis was a long-term project right up to the moment of his defenestration.
The latest ‘plan’ has been to turn on a temporary basis to Frank Lampard, who has already proven he’s not good enough to be the Chelsea manager. It’s wrong to blame Lampard for tonight’s result: he is a man out of depth given no time to work with a wildly bloated squad.
Boehly has signed 16 players for more than £600 million and this historic splurge didn’t even buy Chelsea a game plan in a Champions League quarter-final. Lampard sent Chelsea less with a clear strategy than with a vague attitude to keep it tight.
So they dropped off Madrid and tried to counter-attack, and the first couple of minutes might have convinced of the merits of the perspective, as Joao Felix sprinted clear one-on-one but was too slow to shoot and allowed Eder Militao to recover. But Madrid soon took over, and while Chelsea looked like a side who wanted to play in a low-block, they were neither compact nor invulnerable to runs in behind.
Fede Valverde and Luka Modric constantly popped up in space between the lines as Chelsea’s midfield trio were bafflingly far apart: at one point in the first-half when Valverde spun Enzo Fernandez and waltzed behind him, Fernandez trotted back after him waving his arms in bewilderment at N’Golo Kante and Mateo Kovacic, who were standing halfway to each touchline.
And if there’s one type of goal a deep-lying defence should not concede, it’s from a ball over the top. And yet this was Real Madrid’s avenue to their opening goal: Vinicius skating in from the wing onto Davi Carvajal’s chipped pass, and his knock-down was palmed by Kepa into the path of Karim Benzema, who couldn’t miss.
From there, Chelsea morphed into a strange, liminal state. They opened up and created no clear goalscoring chances bar Raheem Sterling’s close-range effort from Reece James’ cross right after the goal, all the while being picked off on the counter-attack.
Tuchel admitted last year that he had made a mistake in the first leg by picking Reece James at wing-back and leaving Andreas Christensen isolated and thus tortured by Vinicius. Lampard inexplicably made the same error again, but this time it was Wesley Fofana who had to live the brutal life of the man tasked with dealing with Vinicius. Tuchel corrected his mistake at half-time, but tonight Lampard did not.
Chelsea became more stretched in the second half, and only Kalidou Koulibaly’s excellent recovery run stopped Rodrygo from scoring one-on-one. The intervention cost Koulibaly a muscle strain and the rest of the game, and on bounded Marc Cucurella.
Minutes later Cucurella was off wandering into midfield to follow a dummy runner, leaving acres of space over his shoulder into which Rodrygo ran again. This time Chilwell was making the desperate run back, but this time he fouled Rodrygo and was given a straight red card.
Madrid eased off the tempo but they did get the second goal they deserved, substitute Marco Asensio rifling in from outside the box after Chelsea reacted too slackly to a short corner. Antonio Rudiger, once of Chelsea, came off the bench for Madrid and made a superb late block to deny Mason Mount in stoppage time, but it was Chelsea’s only true sight of goal in the second half. They desperately lacked penalty-box presence, which is another indictment of Chelsea’s squad management. Pierre Emerick Aubameyang was signed for Tuchel days before Tuchel was sacked, and Potter then left him out of the European squad meaning Lampard couldn’t pick him. In fact, Chelsea’s only registered Champions League striker scored last night for Inter Milan.
Madrid were bewitching at times in the first half, and they might have scored more had their minds been sharpened by better competition. The sophisticated, high-octane theatre of last year’s meeting between the sides was a distant memory tonight. Such is Chelsea’s astonishing decline.
Todd Boehly was doorstepped by Sky Sports earlier today, and he predicted Chelsea would win tonight’s game 3-0. This is the least profound of his mistakes.
