What We Learned – Valiant blues proudly exit the Champions League

The UCL defending champions, Chelsea faced an uphill task of overturning a 3-1 home leg deficit after Karim Benzema’s super hattrick at the Bridge a week ago.

The blues reacted to that result at the bridge against the Spanish powerhouse by trouncing Southampton 6-0 at the saint’s Mary stadium over the weekend. The result against Southampton gave Tuchel’s men the impetus heading to Spain and with expectations at a bare minimum, the performance of the team from London shook the footballing world.

Chelsea took the lead through a Mason Mount strike after some piece of luck, with the ball ricocheting off Werner before finding its way to Mount inside the area with the Englishman showing brilliant composure to side-foot Chelsea into a lead 15 minutes in.

Chelsea remained calm in possession and toiled all through the remainder of the first half but the game remained 0-1 in favor of the blues heading into the break.

The second 45 minutes started with similar intensity from the blues and their persistence paid off with Rudiger leveling the tie with a brilliant header off a corner from Mason Mount on the 51st minute.
Chelsea weren’t done with the scoring yet and Timo Werner showed superb composure to beat two Real defenders before striking the ball via the aid of a deflection into the bottom corner of the net to put Chelsea ahead in the tie.

Real Madrid pushed and made changes to reverse the tie back into their favor and one of such changes was introducing Rodrygo for Casemiro and the young Brazilian turned out to be the savior after a pass worthy to win a trophy from an enigmatic figure in midfield Luka Modric found its way to the winger who side-footed Madrid back on level terms.

The game went into extra time and with both sets of players fatigued from the intense match played so far, Kante struggled to react quickly enough to a loose ball in midfield and Camavinga pounced, won the ball back before finding Vinicius Jnr in space after Reece James had vacated his position only for the Brazilian to find his strike partner Benzema with a pin point cross for the French striker to colly direct across Mendy into the bottom left corner. Match ends 2-3 on the night, Chelsea won the night but lost over two nights.

Here are 5 lessons learned as Chelsea bow out of the UCL;

One thing certain as Chelsea suffered a big defeat to Real Madrid in the first leg was how well Tuchel was going to prepare his boys for the return leg and boy did he do a great job! The German super-tactician fully nullified every evident threat of the Spanish giants from the first leg with his tactics causing Madrid problems all over the pitch.

Just as the weekend, Tuchel played a hybrid formation with a lot of movement and fluidity across the attack and midfield when in possession and a solid pressing unit when out of possession. On paper, Ruben Loftus Cheek played as a wing back but he was often seen coming in-field to create options and angles for passes while also helping to shut out spaces in the passing line of Ferland Mendy to Vinicius Jnr.

If Chelsea are to stand any chance of remaining a powerhouse in Europe, Tuchel surely has to stay!

German defence kingpin Antonio Rudiger, once again proved how much of an inspiration he is to the present players and his importance cannot be overemphasized with his desire to win on the pitch rubbing off other players.

Rudiger’s presence at the defence is of huge importance due to his aggression and his aerial ability on the other end of the pitch means he gets to score crucial goals. With the contract of Rudiger expiring at the end of this current season, there is little or no doubt about how integral the German is to Tuchel’s and Chelsea’s future plans.

In recent seasons, Chelsea has integrated a few graduates from the academy into the first team and that recent trend started with a certain Ruben Loftus-Cheek. The Cobham product has struggled under various managers due to different factors ranging from injuries, form and inconsistencies.

Since Tuchel’s arrival, RLC has played quite often and with the new role drafted him by Tuchel, RLC seems to have found another chance at consistent first team action.

RLC’s physicality, pace and direct running was a huge problem to the Madrid midfield and left back Mendy seemed rattled by the former Fulham man. With the season coming to an end, RLC is sure to have a few chances more to prove himself a viable option in this new found position as an half wing-back and a center midfielder.

Since the season-ending injury suffered by Ben Chilwell, the left wing-back position has been a point of weakness due to Alonso’s lack of pace but here at the Bernabeu, the Spanish full-back showed why Tuchel recently labeled him an “expert” at wing-back.

The former Madrid man oozed class all through the game and his control of the left hand side was integral to how Chelsea played due to the fact he had no winger before him and Werner’s instruction to stay on the right center back meant he sometimes had to be positionally diligent in order to avoid any situation of a possible two-on-one situation.

Alonso’s attacking input was also evident with his goal that got disallowed by VAR and his dangerous crosses into the box helped create pandemonium in the Madrid penalty area.

I recently highlighted how inconsistent Christian Pulisic has been this season and since the post-lockdown games where he shone brightly, his form after then has been dwindling. Pulisic came on as a sub here for Werner and had two decent chances fall his way before the expiration of the regulation time.

Pulisic’s substitution off the bench in recent matches have made little or no impact on the games and if he’s to remain an important member of this squad, Pulisic has got to improve his finishing in crucial games most especially.

Player Ratings:

Mendy 7/10, James 8/10, Silva 7/10, Rudiger 10/10, Alonso 8/10, Kante 7/10, Kovaciç 9/10, RLC 7/10, Werner 9/10, Kai 8/10, Mount 10/10.

Subs: Pulisic 5/10, Ziyech 6/10, Jorginho 5/10, Saül 5/10

What’s next?

Chelsea get back into domestic action as they travel to London, Wembley stadium to take on Crystal Palace on Sunday in the Emirates FA cup semi-final.