Thomas Tuchel refused to allow talk of Chelsea's takeover to be a reason for their consecutive defeats to Brentford and Real Madrid as the Blues struggle to get up to speed having returned from the international break.
The Blues fell to a 3-1 defeat thanks to Karim Benzema's hat-trick but were unable to truly exert their will on the game, with Los Blancos cutting through the midfield with ease in the opening half. Edouard Mendy's poor pass to Antonio Rudiger, which Benzema was able to latch onto, sealed Chelsea's fate early in the second half, leaving Tuchel's side a stern task in Madrid next week.
The German coach had a simple assessment of his team's performance in the first-leg of the Champions League quarter-final. He said: "With this kind of performance, the tie is over."
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Ahead of the international break, Chelsea maintained good form despite plenty of disruption behind the scenes. The Club World Cup champions won 12 of 13 matches before their stars took off with their national teams.
One of the club's prospective owners, Todd Boehly, was in attendance at Stamford Bridge for the game, with the deadline for final bids arriving in less than a week. The Blues boss refuses to allow this to be an excuse, however.
He said:"I was a bit shocked when I saw the number of games we played in 2022. I saw it in the last days, we were the team with Liverpool who have played by far the most matches in England and Europe. Don't forget everybody else's life changes. We had three extra-times on top of it. So yes, it is a bit worrying.
"The schedule is not our friend this season and we've struggled from it. But we can still play better because I think we found in the first half we could exploit these positions better. We can play much better. We can hurt Real Madrid much more, but we were far off our level and that is very disappointing because it is a night when you need to be spot on.
"You ask about the circumstances and the change of ownership, I see no difference between the last weeks and the last weeks we performed. I do not accept it as an excuse because of the same reasons that I said before. It is the moment now to find an end to this period of conceding goals and losing games very quickly because we are in an absolutely crucial time of the season."
