Teams who aren’t competing for the Champions League as potential winners often find themselves in a funny cycle.
They spend all year battling for a top 4 place – as Chelsea did last season – but when the next season arrives, instead of enjoying their reward, they’re back at square one battling to make it in for the following season.
Chelsea got out of the group stage last year, but were then battered by Bayern Munich over two legs. Was it all pointless though? Not according to Frank Lampard, who explained today in his press conference ahead of the game with Sevilla tomorrow night, that his team had learned a lot from those games.
Lampard says the Champions League is a great platform to learn, and 'we played against the best in Bayern Munich'. That tie was a great marker for our young players in the squad, and getting through the group last year was a good outcome after losing the first game.#CHESEV
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) October 19, 2020
It’s true that some of those games – the away match in Ajax stands out in particular – saw us play our most mature matches of Lampard’s reign so far.
The way it ended was painful, but we saw a lot of growth for a lot of young players along the way, and with a newly strengthened team, we’d expect Lampard to take us much further this time around.
