Chelsea’s limp Champions League exit completes season from hell

LONDON – As Chelsea owner Toddy Boehly surveyed the wreckage of his club’s season from hell after their Champions League exit on Tuesday, he might have pondered just how long it will be before they feature in the competition again.

The Blues are left with nothing but pride to play for in the final weeks of a disastrous campaign, after

Real Madrid’s 2-0 victory

in the second leg of the quarter-finals at Stamford Bridge completed a 4-0 aggregate success for the holders and 14-time winners.

Appropriately, the troubled Premier League side once again paid the price for a lack of cutting edge as they wasted a host of chances before succumbing to a pair of clinical moves finished by Rodrygo.

Since Boehly bought Chelsea in 2022, the west London club have suffered one self-inflicted wound after another. They are languishing in 11th spot in the Premier League, will finish without a trophy and are unlikely to even qualify for the Europa Conference League.

In a sign of the turmoil enveloping the Blues, former striker Didier Drogba ripped into the American ahead of the Real game.

“I don’t recognise my club. It’s no longer the same club. There is a new owner and a new vision. A dressing room of over 30 players is difficult for a manager,” he said.

Stand-in captain Thiago Silva urged Chelsea to come up with a “strategy” to prevent the club’s slump stretching into next season, saying it was important to assess what had gone wrong rather than apportioning blame.

“It is not enough to look at the coach, say ‘it’s this person’s fault, it’s that person’s fault’ if we don’t assume our responsibilities.”

The question is how much lower can Chelsea sink, after suffering four successive defeats since Frank Lampard returned as manager until the end of the season following Graham Potter’s sacking.

He noted: “Manchester United and Arsenal have spent time out of the Champions League. Maybe some clubs are more stable than we are at the minute in terms of the squad. But we can set the building blocks now for where we want to get to.

“This club is going to be back. I think the fans appreciated the performance today and we have to latch onto that and go again next year.”

Boehly’s chaotic influence has turned Chelsea into a laughing stock less than 12 months into his reign. The team who lifted the Champions League trophy under Thomas Tuchel just two years ago is already being broken up.

Of the 11 who started their 1-0 win over Manchester City in the final in May 2021, only four were in Lampard’s line-up to face Real on Tuesday. Despite his success, Tuchel was surprisingly dismissed amid reports of rows with Boehly over transfer policy.

Perhaps the German had a point because Boehly’s £550 million (S$911 million) spending spree on new signings has done nothing to solve Chelsea’s problems.

Potter was then hired as the “collaborative” manager who would work with Boehly to replicate his impressive work with low-budget Brighton on a bigger stage. But he looked out of his depth from the start of his first job at a major club.

It proved impossible for Potter to juggle a bloated squad, with Boehly crucially failing to find a prolific striker in his frenzied spending.

As his problems mounted, he quickly learnt that Boehly’s version of collaboration was to kick him to the kerb after just seven months. In came Lampard and after being confronted by angry fans

during Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat against Brighton,

the American reportedly delivered a speech to the players, during which he called Chelsea’s season “embarrassing”.

But Real coach Carlo Ancelotti, a former Chelsea boss, believes that could be an “important motivation”. He said before Tuesday’s game: “I think it is a good move to do this... If he (Real’s president) wants to talk to me every game I am pleased because I think the owner has the right to know what are the decisions of the managers.”

The Italian was sacked by then owner Roman Abramovich only a year after winning the Premier League and FA Cup double in 2010.

Boehly appears to have inherited Abramovich’s ruthless approach to managers. But the Russian’s cash unquestionably transformed Chelsea into serial winners, giving them a status and respect that Boehly, despite his cash, is already eroding. AFP