Real Madrid have sent Chelsea a big warning heading into the Champions League quarter-final second leg at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday. The reigning champions and serial competition winners head into the game with an already mountainous 2-0 lead.
For Chelsea, who have history in ties like this as well as pulling off the unexpected, their current nadir doesn't offer much room for optimism. The Blues are without a win in five matches, scoring just three times in those games. Take out penalties or goals massively deflected and that number is one in five.
It's 14 home games since Chelsea last scored three in a single 90 minutes, they'll need at least two if they are to get through here. Off the back of a string of poor and uninspiring performances, there is little hope of an upset occuring.
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Any lingering stirs of yet another European dream at Stamford Bridge will have taken another hit when Carlo Ancelotti's men strolled past Cadiz in La Liga. Although the title appears to be out of their reach, the Champions League has become a staple for this Los Blancos squad and their warm up for a visit to London couldn't have been simpler.
Goals from Nacho Fernandez and Marco Asensio in the second half rounded off a 2-0 away win, despite the Italian boss making seven changes to the starting line-up. With Luka Modric and Vinicius Jr amongst those missing out there had been some thoughts that they may have been in danger of not playing at SW6 due to injury but Ancelotti put that to rest.
"They couldn’t play today because they both had small issues," he explained. "They trained separately today but tomorrow they’ll train as normal and be fine for Tuesday."
The Croatian was as controlling and impressive as ever against Chelsea at Santiago Bernabeu. As for Vinicius Jr, he ran Reece James and Wesley Fofana ragged throughout before Asensio added the deserved second goal on the night.
Chelsea also rested players for their loss to Brighton with James only a second half subtitute. N'Golo Kante and Thiago Silva were also left out of the matchday squad but whereas Madrid made changes and kept up their form, Chelsea and Frank Lampard fell to yet another defeat.
Even by the standards of shock and surprise in the Champions League that Chelsea have set, overcoming this task has become even harder once more.
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