And the last hope of the London team to save a disastrous season faded away on Tuesday by losing to its guest, the Royal Club, 0-2 in the second leg of the quarter-finals of the prestigious continental competition, after it had lost by the same result in the first leg last Wednesday in the Spanish capital.
Chelsea’s defense tycoon and Brazil’s national football team, Thiago Silva, urged the London club on Wednesday to develop a “strategy” to prevent a decline in its results in the next season, after its exit from the Champions League quarter-finals at the hands of the defending champions, Real Madrid.
And the last hope of the London team to save a disastrous season faded away on Tuesday by losing to its guest, the Royal Club, 0-2 in the second leg of the quarter-finals of the prestigious continental competition, after it had lost by the same result in the first leg last Wednesday in the Spanish capital.
Silva admitted that the season had been tough for the club and said Chelsea’s star-studded squad always had unhappy players.
Chelsea has spent more than 500 million pounds ($620 million) in the transfer market since it was bought by a consortium led by American Todd Bohle and Clearlake Capital Group from Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich last year.
Four coaches have supervised Chelsea’s training so far this season, the last of whom is temporary Frank Lampard, after the dismissal of German Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter, while Bruno Saltor led him one match before appointing his former midfielder, Lampard.
Lampard lost the four matches in which he led Chelsea since his appointment, and his team scored only once.
Chelsea are 11th in the league, 17 points off fourth place with seven matches remaining and unlikely to qualify for European competition.
Silva said after the loss to Real Madrid that it was important to evaluate what went wrong rather than assigning blame.
“It is not enough to look at the coach and say ‘It’s this person’s fault, it’s that person’s fault’ if we don’t live up to our responsibilities.”
“We have to stop and have a strategy not to repeat the same mistakes next year.”
And the 38-year-old Silva added that the club had to increase the size of the changing room to accommodate their huge squad, with eight new signings in January alone.
“I think it’s a difficult time for the club, with the change of owner, the arrival of so many players – they even had to increase the size of the dressing room because there wasn’t enough space for all the players,” he explained.
He concluded, “The positive point is that there are great players in the team, but the negative point is that someone will get upset, because not everyone can play and the coach must choose 11 players and there are 30 players.”
