19 April 2023 , 03:30
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Chelsea crashed out of the Champions League with a 2-0 defeat on the night and a 4-0 loss on aggregate against Real Madrid on Tuesday.
Frank Lampard's side had the better of the first 60 minutes at Stamford Bridge but were undone after a mistake from Trevoh Chalobah. The defender decided to dive in and allow Real to have a three-on-two opportunity, with Rodrygo providing the finishing touch.
Rodrygo added his second of the evening for Los Blancos late on, capping off a fine team move to rub more salt in Chelsea's wounds as they bowed out of the Champions League in limp fashion. The result leaves the Blues winless in seven matches in all competitions since the 3-1 win at Leicester in March - and it doesn't look promising for interim boss Lampard at the moment.
Here is the latest news from the Chelsea camp.
Ferdinand on Chelsea's issues
Rio Ferdinand believes Chelsea should keep Lampard until the end of the season - and wait until the summer before bringing in a permanent manager due to their recruitment issues.
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The 44-year-old was appointed as Interim boss back in April following the sacking of Graham Potter, but Lampard hasn't improved the Blues' form at all. Chelsea have lost all four matches since Lampard came back for the second spell in charge, failing to score a goal in the process.
Ferdinand told BT Sport: "I think it would be a mess if they come in now. I don’t think you can do that. Frank [Lampard]’s here, they’ve made that decision, you’ve got to live and die by that now.
"See it away until the end of the season but if there’s a pre-contract agreement to be signed, a gentleman’s handshake behind the scenes where you can start prodding and looking at the team from afar, but really identifying who he wants to keep and who he wants to get out of the door.
"I think there needs to be a better connection at the club. Looking at it from the outside I don’t know from where we’re sitting here, but there needs to be a better connection from the recruitment team to the coaching staff for that they’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.
"At the moment it all seems a bit fragmented because of the fact you go and recruit £500 million-plus worth of players, and you don’t recruit a number nine. That in itself is like where is this going? It leads to too many questions that you shouldn’t have to be asking."
Frank Lampard cut a frustrated figure after his side's 2-0 defeat against Real Madrid (Getty Images)Cole slams Chelsea hierarchy
Joe Cole has hit out at Chelsea's hierarchy and their transfer policy after spending almost £600million on new players and signing 16 new players since Todd Boehly took over at Stamford Bridge.
He told BT Sport: "Do you think maybe these guys who run these clubs, they have these massive companies with thousands of employees, a 30-man squad, they might think we've had 30 employees in a certain job, it's fine, you manage them, but professional footballers at this level, it's difficult to manage them.
"Egos and you're on big money, and also you can’t be sacked, you're on a contract. When you’re out of the squad you’ve got an asset diminishing quickly, massively. We look at one of the best players I've ever seen pull on the Chelsea shirt - Eden Hazard - he's gone to Real Madrid, but it's not worked.
"He's on massive money and they can't get him out of the door. He's signed his contract and he’s well within his rights to sit there if he wants and sit on the bench at Real Madrid, now this is going to happen to Chelsea, unless they're proactive, and it's going to cost them a fortune to offload these players."
Gallagher on Real defeat
Conor Gallagher admitted Chelsea must take the positives from their performance against Real Madrid into their final seven Premier League matches.
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The Blues' 2-0 defeat capped an end to another terrible week for the club as they crashed out of the only competition they can win silverware in this season. They currently sit 11th in the Premier League and face Brentford in their next game on April 26.
He told BT Sport: "There’s always things to chase, I think we take one game at a time and we just want to improve as a team and win as many games as we can for the rest of the season.
"Like I said, we’re gonna take it game-by-game and hopefully we can build on the kind of performance there because I felt like it was positive, in a way."