The race to become the new Chelsea head coach is hotting up with attention now firmly placed on the club after they exited the Champions League. Progressing in Europe was the only meaningful chance of keeping their season alive but a 4-0 aggregate loss to Real Madrid has meant a premature end to the campaign on a competitive level.
It leaves Frank Lampard with a record of four defeats in his first four games in caretaker charge of the club. In that time the Blues have only scored one goal - a deflected Conor Gallagher effort against Brighton - conceding seven. Chelsea still remain 11th in the league and are some way off challenging for any form of continental football for next season.
With less than two months now until the end of the campaign, Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali are still on the hunt to find their third permanent manager within 12 months of taking over. Julian Nagelsmann is the current front-runner, football.london understands, but there is still some way to go before the German can be considered in the clear.
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With a long list of high-profile names from across the globe in contention, beIN sports pundits weighed up the options available. It comes just days after presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys were sure-fire on the benefits of Lampard over Nagelsmann and despite the start to his second spell failing to ignite, the stance hasn't changed.
AG: "Here's what I don't get, and I think Nagelsmann's young, inexperienced. Listen, he's been blown away by Bayern Munich's players. Don't forget that. Going to Chelsea is a little bit harder than Munich let me tell you. I don't think Nagelsmann can handle them."
Ruud Gullit: "Mourinho will not come back. I can't see that. Pochettino? He didn't win anything here.
RK: "My choice wold be Mourinho with Chelsea as assistant and I think Chelsea fans would buy that. Someone like Mourinho would have the strength to sort that out but I can't think of too many others.
RG: "The thing is he has the personality to do so, he has it. To stand up to all these players. He'd get them out, whatever. But there's a lot of players, they have to sell them.
RK: "Don't forget with Mourinho, [impersonating Mourinho] 'three times, respect.' "
RG: "He's still the special one."
RK: "He is! Look what he's doing at Roma, they're third now! They've already won a trophy.
RG: "He is among the best coaches ever."
Mourinho, who is currently considering his options in Italy with financial restrictions possibly set to cut his time back in Serie A short, has been linked with the vacancy at Chelsea but is not understood to be in the mix. Despite success over two spells at SW6 his name is not among the true favourites to be in charge for next season.
Nagelsmann is the main man in that regard with the 35 year-old continuing talks with the club after being sacked by Bayern Munich last month. Also appearing on beIN sports, former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger doesn't understand why he was let go in the first place.
"Tuchel won the Champions League at Chelsea coming in halfway through the season as well so maybe he thought he could do it again," the Frenchman said. "I would say that for me it was a big surprise to see Nagelsmann go.
"He was still fighting for all the trophies, the cup, the championship and for the Champions League. For the results front you could not say he wasn't doing well.
"What happened? It looks to me like there was a split, maybe, between some experienced players and him in the dressing room. At Bayern this was always, the experience of the real Bayern players, was very strong at the club.
"When your manager has these players onside then it makes you stronger. If they are not on your side then it becomes very quickly weak. No matter what I think, it was very surprising to see and not justified by the results of the team."
Whoever does step into the Chelsea hot seat next has a big challenge ahead of them with a bloated squad, rumbles of discontent throughout and underperforming players to try and gel.
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