Chelsea star Thiago Silva has subtly criticised the transfer decisions made by Todd Boehly following the Blues' Champions League exit at the hands of Real Madrid. The veteran defender has been forced to watch the majority of the last few months from the stands after picking up a knee injury at the end of February, but he returned in time to play 166 minutes across both legs of Chelsea's quarter-final tie with Madrid.
Despite the experience and ability of Silva, there was virtually nothing he could do to prevent the four goals fired in by Carlo Ancelotti's side over the course of the tie. The defeat to Los Blancos was Frank Lampard's fourth since arriving in a temporary role at Chelsea, where the interim boss has watched his team score just once.
On the whole, the performance from Chelsea at Stamford Bridge was filled with guts and guile, particularly the first half, but ultimately the Blues came up short again with similar problems as their faltering attack once again failed to fire.
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Champions League elimination and being 10 points off challenging for any European qualification spot makes the remainder of Chelsea's season somewhat redundant. However, Lampard sees it as an opportunity to raise the levels in the squad, especially with the weekend free for them, with scheduled opponents Manchester United instead facing Brighton in the second FA Cup semi-final on Sunday.
"I just see it as a chance to work here every day which is a pleasure for me because of my link to the club," he said after the game. "I enjoy that side. I don’t like losing games. I came into a team low on confidence, losing a lot of games, we haven’t had time to work. We now get a little period to work.
"People on the outside may well write it off, coming in eighth or 12th, or whatever it is. To me it means a lot. That for me is the challenge; to raise performance. I keep saying I haven’t had time to work, I have now had some time to work and I saw things today that I liked."
Despite speaking well, Lampard has faced some criticism for his tactics, while Boehly has also been blamed for bringing in the Chelsea legend in the first place. But, Silva admitted that Lampard is not at fault for the defeats as he appeared to send a blunt message to Boehly, hinting at what the Chelsea co-owner must do this summer.
“We can’t be blaming the managers if we don’t take responsibility," he said, via Metro. "It’s a hard period for the club, with a lot of indecision. Change of ownership, new players arriving – we had to increase the size of the changing room because it didn’t fit the size of the squad.
“A positive point is that there are amazing players in the squad but on the other hand there are always players that are going to be unhappy.
“There is always going to be someone upset because not everyone can play. The manager can only pick 11 from a squad of 30-something – that’s tough.
“Some can’t make the squad, we signed eight in January, we need to stop and put a strategy in place otherwise next season we could make the same mistakes.”
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