Frank Lampard had told his Chelsea players to prove people wrong by knocking Real Madrid out of the Champions League.
Chelsea take on the holders in the first leg of a quarter-final at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night suffering from a lack of form and confidence.
The club have won just four of their last 20 Premier League games and sit 11th in the table. It looks increasingly likely that they will have to win the Champions League to play in Europe next season but Real Madrid are strong favourites to progress to the last four.
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Lampard has only been in charge since last Thursday. Graham Potter was dismissed as head coach nine days ago and his assistant Bruno Saltor was put in charge for the 0-0 draw with Liverpool before stepping down.
But Lampard believes Chelsea have what it takes to cause an upset. When asked by The Athletic if he will use Real Madrid being everyone’s tip to progress to his advantage, he replied: “There is no better carrot in football than trying to prove people wrong, being the underdog and have a good result.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve been part of. I think that is a nice challenge for us. I’m not worried about that. In terms of the pressure I am not worried about that. Football at this level is pressure. If you can’t handle the pressure you are not a big club, you are not a big player or a participant in it.
“We have to understand the strengths of the Real Madrid team, their qualities in possession and their individual talent. We have to be very disciplined in our game off the ball, understand the threats.
“There are some very clear threats individually in their team, ways Real Madrid like to score and regularly score and how they want to control the game. So we have to be defensively good against that. But we also have to show our own strengths in our game. We have to have belief, we have to follow the idea because in a high-level game the biggest thing can sometimes be the mentality — following through with what the idea is, under pressure. At this level you have to be spot on with our game to take it back to Stamford Bridge in front of our supporters.”
Lampard, who was part of the Chelsea side that won the trophy for the first time in their history 11 years ago, revealed he has had messages from ex-Chelsea colleagues, including former interim coach Guus Hiddink (spells in 2008-2009 and 2015-16 seasons) wishing him well.
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He added: “I have exchanged some messages with a few people — obviously a lot of people are Chelsea-related, Guus Hiddink, ex-managers and people in the game.
“There are parallels (with 2012) but I think I have to be careful making that parallel. We have very tough games in front of us, starting tomorrow. So there’s a lot of work to be done but we’re very committed to trying to, if we can, create our own little bit of history.”
Lampard revealed Thiago Silva (knee) and Mason Mount (pubic bone) are in the squad after injury. N’Golo Kante is also fit after being rested for the 1-0 loss at Wolves on Saturday.
GO DEEPER
This is how Chelsea can knock Real Madrid out of the Champions League (seriously)
(Photo: Getty Images)