Frank Lampard has told Chelsea’s players that their “standard cannot drop” after they put in a “really good” performance in their defeat to Real Madrid.
Chelsea had a lot of work to do heading into Tuesday night’s Champions League semi-final second leg against Real Madrid as the English side were beaten 2-0 last week in Spain.
The Blues had a few chances to get themselves back into the tie but – as they have been for much of this campaign – they were wasteful when opportunities came their way
Real Madrid punished the hosts in the second half. Rodrygo netted twice as the La Liga outfit ran out 4-0 winners on aggregate to set up a semi-final tie with Man City or Bayern Munich.
This defeat is a fresh blow for Chelsea, whose hopes of playing in Europe next season are now over. They have now lost four games in a row since Lampard returned to the club as interim head coach.
Lampard claimed post-match that Chelsea “played really well” for an hour against Real Madrid.
“We played really well for 60 minutes, and maybe it’s normal after the goal – it’s 3-0 in the tie and we make some changes to go for it – it’s maybe normal how the game pans out to a degree, but 60 minutes, really good, really good chances at this level and you have to take them,” Lampard told BT Sport.
“You don’t want to praise performance too much when you lose at this level because it’s finite, but of course when you’ve been this season where we are…”
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When asked about the remainder of the season, Lampard added: “We’re playing for Chelsea so regardless, every game we play, we have to give everything. I’ve only been here now for not even two weeks, so I’m hungry.
“I won’t let anyone off the hook in terms of seeing this season out. It has to be the opposite. You have to show in the 60 minutes today what we showed.
“We were playing world-class opposition there and we were, for me, the better team and we had chances. Now that standard cannot drop. That’s the one message, once the dust settles on this, for us in the house.”
Conor Gallagher meanwhile is “disappointed” that Chelsea were unable to take their chances.
“Football is all about taking your chances and we didn’t do that today, which is disappointing. Of course, we’re going to be gutted, but we played some good stuff today,” Gallagher said.
“That’s basically what…
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