Chelsea favourite Joe Cole has said that the Blues hierarchy took the wrong option of not spending during the January transfer window. The west London giants could not make any new signings last summer due to a two-window transfer ban but they managed to win their appeal over the same at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in December.
As such, they were free to make new purchase at the turn of the year but surprisingly, the board took the decision to stick with the same squad of players for the backend of the season. That has certainly cost the side, who have barely won over the past few months where a number of key players have suffered injury setbacks.
Speaking on BT Sport, Cole stressed that Lampard would have been desperate for new additions to the squad in January and the club’s failure to do so has hampered the performances of the team on the playing field, he told: “I think knowing this game was on the horizon, Frank would have been desperate to get players through the door.
“You’ve asked Giroud, who’s done brilliant for you at the weekend, he’s not been fit and a 32-year-old striker to come and lead the line against probably one of the best sides in Europe as the moment, it just looked like he ran out of steam towards the end. So not recruiting has definitely affected the performance and the team.”
Chelsea recently succumbed to a disappointing 3-0 defeat to Bayern Munich in the home leg of the Champions League round of 16 tie. That has pretty much ended their prospects of qualifying for the next round of the competition, considering require need at least three goals at the Allianz Arena without conceding to take the game to a penalty shoot-out.