Frank Lampard has openly declared his desire to become manager for a second time but his chances of winning the position are not looking good.
He has yet to celebrate a victory since replacing on a temporary basis and his long-term plans will suffer a severe setback on Tuesday if the Blues crash out of the .
They head into their quarter-final second leg with and, with just one goal from four games under Lampard’s temporary tenure, the odds are not good on them scoring three times to go through.
It would take a cold heart not to have some sympathy for a player who netted a club record 211 goals in all competitions during a sterling playing career at the Bridge.
That’s more than Bobby Tambling, Kerry Dixon and Didier Drogba and any player of their calibre would turn the powderpuff attack into a potent force.
Real are blessed with Karim Benzema, who is likely to start his third match in a week but still looks fresh despite being aged 35.
He cashed for us by opening the scoring in the first leg and he’s 4/1 with Paddy Power to do so again while the defending champions are 29/20 to win with Coral.
Being more specific, another 2-0 triumph for the Spaniards is 12/1 with William Hill.
Lampard is currently as short as 5/1 with Sky Bet and as large as 12/1 with Bet Victor to be the next Blues boss but those odds will get even bigger after they are booted out of the tournament.
Chelsea have held talks about the job with former Bayern Munich manager Julian Nagelsmann, a 9/4 chance with Bet Victor, but the board may be wiser to turn to Barcelona legend who is the same price with the same firm.
Andre Villas-Boas lost his way with the Blues when he was perceived to be too close in age to the players and the same could be said of Nagelsmann, who is of a similar age at 35.
• West Brom, Burnley, Plymouth and Barnsley form our Football League yankee for Tuesday’s games
• Judd Trump is 7/1 with Bet Victor to beat Anthony McGill 10-6 when they meet at the World Snooker Championship, starting on Tuesday.
