Roman Abramovich, the story had it, decided to buy a Premier League football club after watching Brazilian great Ronaldo score a hat trick for Real Madrid in the Champions League at Old Trafford in 2003. If that was the start of his involvement in football, it’s perhaps fitting that another brilliant hat trick by a Madrid player on an English ground should bring the curtain down on the Abramovich era. This time it was Karim Benzema, and, while Chelsea will argue, quite rightly, that Wednesday’s 3–1 home defeat in the first leg of the quarterfinals does not mean it is out of this season’s Champions League, the France international’s hat trick was every bit as good as Ronaldo’s.
As talks about the ownership go on and the Raine Group works through the shortlist to decide which bid will be successful, it’s hardly surprising if players have begun to become a little distracted. Everything for now is on hold and, while adversity can bond players, there can come a point at which it is simply wearying. And as the end of the season draws near, players, understandably, begin to wonder about their own futures.
Perhaps that’s reading too much into a couple of poor results—and this was a far better performance than Saturday’s 4–1 defeat to Brentford—but if the uncertainty is not the reason for Chelsea’s sudden laxity, what is? Chelsea’s more familiar failing is sterility, but that was not the problem here. Indeed, on another night, it may have scored three or four itself. The issue was that it was sliced apart, again and again.
