Carlo Ancelotti has admitted his Real Madrid side did find it hard getting to grips with Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante last night.
Chelsea were beaten 2-0 by Madrid on Tuesday evening at home, exiting the Champions League at the quarter-final stage with a 4-0 aggregate loss.
However, the Blues will know they wasted enough chances to get them back into the European tie.
N’Golo Kante, who was deployed as an advanced midfielder by caretaker boss Frank Lampard, caused Madrid a lot of issues with his movement.
Unfortunately, the £30million (BBC) Blues star missed two magnificent chances to score when the tie was still hanging in the balance.
First of all, Kante dragged his left-footed shot wide from close range during the early stages of the last night’s game. Madrid keeper Thibaut Courtois claims the Chelsea home support were right behind their team, so the roof would have come off Stamford Bridge with an early goal.
Later on, the 32-year-old midfielder took another shot from inside the penalty area, this one well blocked.
Madrid boss Ancelotti has highlighted Chelsea’s No.7 as an individual he found very tough to live with.
A tactical tweak during the second period did help the problem, though.
“I think we suffered the position of Kante, [Eduardo] Camavinga was used to put pressure on Reece James and we had difficulty controlling Kante. In the second half I put [Federico] Valverde on the left to control the position and we were much better there,” Ancelotti said, as quoted by Football London.
Kante didn’t turn up with his shooting boots this week. He wasn’t the only player in blue, though.
The story of Chelsea’s season was perfectly on display against Madrid, which is failing to take the goalscoring opportunities on offer.
There’s now just seven games remaining in the season with some tough Premier League fixtures ahead.
We’re not too sure where the goals are going to come from.
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