Jamie Carragher criticised both Marc Cucurella and Ben Chilwell for mistakes they made in Chelsea’s defeat against Real Madrid last night.
Karim Benzema and Marco Asensio were both on the scoresheet last night for Madrid, which gives them a 2-0 aggregate lead in the Champions League quarter-final tie.
The teams will meet again next Tuesday night for the second leg at Stamford Bridge, but they’re colossal underdogs after the loss in the Bernabeu yesterday.
A big turning point in Wednesday night’s game was definitely the sending off of Ben Chilwell, who left his side down to 10 men for the final half an hour of the match.
The left wing-back made a poor decision to pull back Rodrgyo’s arm when he was through one-on-one. However, you can definitely point a portion of blame towards centre-back Marc Cucurella for failing to track the Madrid star’s run in behind the defence.
Pundit Carragher suggests both Cucurella and Chilwell were at fault for the decisive second-half moment.
It put Chelsea even further on the backfoot with a man less, and Madrid made them pay with Asensio’s goal to double the scoreline.
“Defensively from Cucurella it was really poor and then Chilwell, the second part, his positional play and then the red card – let your goalkeeper do his job,” Carragher told CBS Sports.
Jamie O’Hara called Cucurella a “disgrace” for failing to track Rodrygo. It was Chilwell who ultimately pulled the player back and got himself dismissed, though.
There is just too many individual errors for the Blues wherever you look across the pitch.
We expect the Stamford Bridge crowd to be in full voice next week against Madrid, but the reality is the team haven’t scored in the last four games across all competitions.
It’ll take something remarkable to overturn a two-goal deficit!