Frank Lampard defends Chelsea’s approach in Real Madrid defeat

Frank Lampard defended Chelsea’s tactical approach after watching his side go down 2-0 to a rampant Real Madrid in the Bernabeu.

Real’s front three of Karim Benzema, Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo were at their electric best during Wednesday’s Champions League quarter-final first leg, and created problems that Chelsea struggled to live with.

Vinicius in particular terrorised Reece James and Wesley Fofana down the visitors’ right, with Fofana receiving a yellow card after only five minutes for tripping the Brazilian on the halfway line as he threatened to get in behind the defence.

Defeat in the first leg.#UCL pic.twitter.com/VuwXuygJwg

— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) April 12, 2023

Chelsea’s plans were further thrown into disarray when Ben Chilwell was sent off on the hour mark for hauling down Rodrygo when he was the last man.

By then the Blues already trailed to Benzema’s first-half goal, and substitute Marco Asensio swept in a second 16 minutes from the end as the 10 men failed to weather Real’s threat.

Lampard said he had hoped to be able to stifle the European champions’ attack by selecting both Fofana and James on the right whilst still allowing an attacking outlet for his side.

“Vinicius one-v-one is a big problem for any team,” he said. “We wanted to be able to create two-v-one on that side of the pitch. It didn’t help Fofana getting the yellow card so early, it makes you nervous about that.

“We want to not be a back five as much as we can, we tried to enforce that. With the ball we want to be a (back) three, we want to use the width of the pitch. I think we could have done that a bit better. It was a weapon to use for us today.

“In terms of the system, the thinking was very clear on that to deal with their threats, but