When Chelsea get themselves a high class striker in the summer they will be some team. Until then, Graham Potter will have to sit and suffer as his side continue to misfire in the Champions League as well as the Premier League.
The numbers make for nervous reading if you’re of a blue persuasion. One goal scored in their last four in all competitions. Three in their last eight. When you can’t keep the back door shut, such areas of deficiency come back to bite you.
Spare a penny for the thoughts of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, picking up his substantial wages for watching the Champions League on TV. Also the person was at Stamford Bridge who believed they couldn’t even get to the end of this season without the point man who knows where the goal is. That individual is in for a tricky next few months.
Because Chelsea should have been heading back to London with the advantage heading into the second leg. Instead the man bought to replace Erling Harland, Karim Adeyemi, handed the edge to the home side.
The 21-year-old’s third goal in as many games stretched Dortmund’s winning streak to seven games in a row.
“Beep beep - and off he goes,” said Dortmund boss Edin Terzic afterwards. “It was a well defended corner kick. His first touch was great so that he could accelerate with the second.
“He is very difficult to defend against if he can accelerate. We showed him a clip at half time when he had a chance to go past the centre-back in the first half and he didn’t . It was an outstanding goal and we hope he can continue like this because it is a weapon and very hard to defend against.”
It also gave the finishing touch to the Germans’ attractive approach play that Chelsea didn’t have. And the best chances did fall to the Blues before Dortmund went ahead.
First, running through the middle, Joao Felix somehow contrived to send an effort over the bar that you or I would have at least tested the keeper with, from just inside the box on the half hour.
Then the 23-year-old, on loan from Atletico Madrid, was picked out again in the box. This time with a ball in from the right sent courtesy of Kai Havertz. Again, with a bit of composure, Felix would have sent Chelsea ahead. Instead, he lifted it over keeper Gregor Kobel with too much power and smacked the crossbar.
In the second half Felix repeatedly found Kobel when an effort either side of the keeper would have had him in trouble.
If Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali and the people with the power at Chelsea hold their nerve and wait until the summer, they only need to add a finisher to what is already a promising new team - then watch the new Chelsea go.
Until then, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. In fact, it could easily have gone wrong far sooner.
As early as the fifth minute, a sweeping move caught Chelsea cold and carved the Londoners apart. As wide man Julian Brandt tried to add the finishing touch, however, his shot was blocked.
On the counter, Chelsea counter, Mykhailo Mudryk was tackled superbly by Nico home centre-back Schlotterbeck just as the Ukrainian had entered the box. And so it went on as Dortmund searched for openings.
Clearly Potter deserves patience if the Chelsea project - with so many young players - is going to work. Thankfully the owners have gone on record as saying they will give it to him. The fans could be a different matter.
