Antonio Rudiger has claimed the current Chelsea squad are "nothing like" the one he won the Champions League with in 2021 as his Real Madrid side prepare to face the Blues this week.
Just 13 of Chelsea's current first-team squad were playing for the Blues in their European triumph under Thomas Tuchel almost two years ago. The club has massively changed in those two years and is now under new ownership, with the head coach role also something that has been continuously altered along the way.
Rudiger left Chelsea when his contract expired 12 months after the club's Champions League success, with the Germany international having an offer from Real Madrid that was too good to turn down. The 30-year-old will now come up against Chelsea for the first time since leaving the club and has been explaining how the side is nothing like the one he played with during his days in west London.
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Speaking to Marca (via Goal ), Rudiger said: "The Chelsea team I played for is nothing like the current Chelsea team. But what is clear to me is that the match will be tough, they have plenty of quality players."
Frank Lampard, who Rudiger played under during his time at Chelsea, is now back in the dugout following the recent sacking of Graham Potter. Lampard took charge of his first game – for the second time – as Blues interim head coach on Saturday but his side were beaten 1-0 at Wolves in what was a pretty dire display.
The Chelsea boss blamed the defeat and performance down to a "lack of aggression", among other things. Lampard, though, believes Wednesday evening's Champions League quarter-final first-leg at the Santiago Bernabeu will be a completely different spectacle.
He said: "Every player in that squad, whether it's Mateo Kovacic who has won two Champions Leagues and played in World Cup semis, finals, you deserve to play for Chelsea or if you're Mudryk and you come here, you've had your pathway to get here. You're here for a reason.
"To expect everything to come together as a squad is maybe not the case. I'm not saying the squad doesn't have aggression, it's just bringing it all together.
"Sometimes a bit of confidence, a lack of confidence can look like aggression to the eye. As a team, we were up against a team [Wolves] that were very aggressive today and maybe some second balls and duels and things like that we weren't quite at.
"I don't mind saying because it has to be said to be a reality to be dealt with. Wednesday will be a completely different game but those things are always still there in some form or another. We've got a few days to recover, prepare and go again."
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