Two Australian greats have taken aim at a Chelsea moment of “madness” in Thursday’s (AEST) damaging 2-0 Champions League loss to Real Madrid.
Chelsea were forced to play the final half hour with 10 men after left back Ben Chilwell was sent off for pulling down Rodrygo just outside the box.
Chelsea were 1-0 down at the time and Marco Asensio went on to score Madrid’s second goal to give the defending champions complete command of their quarter final tie.
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England international Chilwell will now miss the second leg in London on Wednesday in what caretaker manager Frank Lampard described as “a big disappointment.”
“It is a goal scoring opportunity, but there’s no guarantee you’re going to score and you’ve basically taken any chance of your team winning, completely gone,” former Chelsea goalkeeper Mark Bosnich said on Stan Sport.
“Also, you miss the second leg and your teammates have to run around against one of the best teams in the world with 10 men for over 30 minutes.
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“I just think it’s madness… like why? And in terms of creative attacking threats he (Chilwell) has been one of their few. So they take him out completely out of the picture.”
Lampard’s woes were compounded by Kalidou Koulibaly’s injury which forced the defender to the sidelines in the second half.
His maligned replacement, Marc Cucurella, got caught badly out of position for the Rodrygo run that led to the Chilwell foul.
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“It’s trouble and Cucurella is just absolutely horrible,” former Socceroos captain Craig Foster said.
“He’s (Lampard) got to be so disappointed in him… like that’s unbelievably poor decision making from a central left side.
“How can you possibly allow that to happen? It’s unbelievable.
“When you go in on an attacker, you have to be in a position where, firstly he can’t turn.
“Secondly, OK, perhaps you might be able to intercept the ball, but even then you’re taking risk, but the most important thing is that he cannot just spin and get in behind you.
“That’s impossible to happen.”
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