Chelsea TV had a really nice punditry lineup for the game against Bayern Munich last night – considerably nicer than the game or the result turned out to be.
Michael Ballack and Pat Nevin provided a nice balance of analysis, although they disagreed on one fundamental factor.
Nevin said that he thought the Blues would have been better off in the Europa League. There they could have played more games, got more experience and got deeper into the competition.
But former Blue Ballack wasn’t so sure, as you can see in his quotes as picked up by the Metro:
“I wouldn’t agree with that. I would always take a Champions League match over three Europa League matches,” the former Germany captain said.
“You learn from these kind of matches and even though they got this tough defeat today, they will learn from that. They will learn more than playing in Donetsk or other teams. These are the best teams, you always want to play against the best teams and that’s how you learn.”
It’s a tough one, and we can see both times. Ultimately all that work in battling to get into the competition, and then to get out of the group, added up to a whole lot of nothing, as we’re dumped out at pretty much the first hurdle.
On the other hand, we waltzed through the whole Europa League and ended up winning the thing last year. Would doing that again really help many of these players that much?
It’s a moot point now anyway. All we’ve got to try and do now is finish in the top 4 – and make a better fist of it next year.
