Micah Richards has praised Chelsea star Kai Havertz’s performance despite their 3-1 first-leg defeat to Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals.
The Blues suffered back-to-back home defeats for just the second time under Thomas Tuchel on Wednesday night.
Inconsistent attacking performance is not exactly new to Chelsea, but very few, if any, had expected that Tuchel’s men, who are usually very solid defensively, would concede seven goals in two games.
Completely stopping an in-form Karim Benzema might have been too optimistic.
Richards, however, believed the Blues should have had realistic chances to get a positive result thanks to their ace.
“I thought he was Chelsea’s best player tonight,” the former Manchester City defender told CBS Sports after the game.
“Chelsea disappointed me a little bit, but when he scored one in, game on.
“At this point, I [thought] Chelsea were going to take the game to Real Madrid.
“But obviously, in the second half so early, Mendy made a mistake and got punished.”
In fairness, even after Mendy’s mistake, Chelsea still had plenty of time to at least reduce the two-goal deficit, but they simply could not convert their control in the second half into big goalscoring opportunities.
Romelu Lukaku’s free header, which went wide, was the only big chance Chelsea created after the break.
As Richards pointed out, Havertz did very well to score with the only other big chance Chelsea had in the game.
Unfortunately, the visitors also had their clinical finisher in Benzema.
Keep up to date with all the latest Chelsea news and opinion by following The Chelsea Chronicle’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Receive a digest of our best Chelsea content each week direct to your mailbox
