Frank Lampard, the interim manager of Chelsea, has said that he “won’t let anyone off the hook” following Real Madrid’s elimination from the Champions League, which dealt their struggling season yet another major setback.
Real won the quarterfinal match 4-0 on the road after scoring twice on Tuesday at Stamford Bridge. As a result, Lampard has now overseen the Blues’ four losses since being named temporary manager earlier this month.
Lampard said, “Every game you play, you have to give all”. The former manager and Chelsea’s all-time greatest scorer, Frank Lampard, 44, continued, “I’ve only been here for two weeks so I’m hungry.”
Chelsea’s best hope of making it to Europe next season was to win the Champions League since they were currently ranked 11th in the Premier League and 10 points behind Brighton in seventh place.
But now they must prepare for a trophy-less season in which they will have nothing to show for a record £600 million spent on players throughout the previous two transfer windows.
Tuesday’s performance was the strongest of Lampard’s brief second stint as Blues manager, but once again they failed to capitalise on their opportunities. In their four defeats under Lampard, they have only managed to score one goal.
The former midfielder for the Blues, who racked up 211 goals during his 13-year playing career, said, “It’s not for lack of effort. I won’t ever criticise the guys for having so many crosses and players in excellent positions; it’s just that if they took any of those opportunities, it could have been different. You could have actually felt the crowd change if the score had ever been tied at 2-1.
We were up against elite competition there, and in my opinion, we were the superior team with more opportunities. We want to keep doing that for the remainder of the season because it’s the first game since I’ve been back that I’ve seen the things and we’ve truly been applying them.”
