“Lacking quality” – All time Premier League top scorer says Chelsea must “blame themselves” | OneFootball

Alan Shearer was on BBC punditry duties for today’s FA Cup semi final defeat to Man City, and like the rest of us he watched Chelsea blow a load of good chances and then end up losing to a team that played much worse, and should have been significantly more fatigued coming into the game.

Without being too cruel, Shearer didn’t pull any punches. He quite accurately said that Chelsea had only themselves to blame. A number of players missed chances, or chances to create chances. It’s a problem that’s afflicted us all season, and in fact for some time before that.

“Chelsea can only blame themselves, they created really, really good chances,” the all time Premier League top scorer said.

“It’s not unlucky, it’s just lacking quality. It is very similar to their cup final defeat here.”

That Carabao Cup final against Liverpool in February was perhaps even more painful, simply because of how well it was set up for us to win it. This time around we messed up our chances, but at least we were playing Man City and not a bunch of teenagers.

Another Wembley tragedy

Shearer’s analysis is correct, it’s just so depressing for Chelsea fans that the course of this game, almost down the exact minute, is so predictable.

What’s worse is that it feels like the more players like Nicolas Jackson live out these recurring nightmares, the more deeply scarred they’re becoming. Losing at Wembley after missing loads of chances is becoming something of a self fulfilling prophecy.

We’ve got to pick ourselves up and attack the league now. There’s nothing else to play for, we just have a handful of games left in a bitterly disappointing campaign to try and put together a run and earn a place in European competition for next season.