Frank Lampard has sent a clear message of hope to Chelsea supporters as the Blues face a near-insurmountable task of overturning a two-goal deficit to European champions Real Madrid. Karim Benzema and Marcos Asensio were both on target in the Champions League quarter-final first leg as Ben Chilwell was shown a red card that confirms his absence for the return fixture at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday evening.
Momentum is certainly not on the side of Lampard and his players with Premier League defeats sandwiching the Champions League loss. Before their trip to Spain, Chelsea were beaten by Wolves at Molineux and this past weekend Brighton took the three points off the west Londoners to leave them still languishing in the bottom half of the league table.
With the second leg in mind, both teams rested key players. Chelsea left Thiago Silva and N'Golo out of the weekend's squad, while Toni Kroos and David Alaba both played no minutes for Carlo Ancelotti's men in the La Liga win against Cadiz.
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All the odds appear against Chelsea and their hopes of securing a spot in the semi-finals, but Lampard has sent a clear message of hope ahead of the clash. "Anything is possible, in football anyway," Lampard said as his first response when asked if he has spoken to his players about how they can turn the tie on it's head. "There’s no doubt that we are a competitive team and that we deserve to be here at this stage of the competition. We also understand that the opponent is of a really high level."
In the previous round, despite it being less of a deficit to overcome against a team in Borussia Dortmund perhaps not quite as strong as Madrid, Chelsea came from behind to win. The performance was a very strong one and will likely be considered the best display in the short tenure of Graham Potter, but the home crowd certainly provided a raucous atmosphere.
Asked about the importance of the supporters, Lampard said: "I have no doubt it will be positive. And when I say that the lead into the game. The start of the game. The rest is down to us as a team to play with a real desire and know how to turn this game around.
"I have been here too many times before at this level of game with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on an evening midweek knockout Champions League game to understand that the atmosphere will be great. And again now it is time for us to tap into that early in the game and make sure we engage the crowd throughout, because they can help us for sure."
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