Kai Havertz of Chelsea celebrates after scoring their team's first goal during the UEFA Champions League (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images) Kai Havertz of Chelsea celebrates after scoring their team's first goal during the UEFA Champions League (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Kai Havertz of Chelsea celebrates after scoring their team's first goal during the UEFA Champions League (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Chelsea 1- 3 Real Madrid: Player ratings, heroes and villains as Karim Benzema’s hat-trick stuns the Blues

Chelsea’s Champions League campaign is hanging by a thread after a 3-1 home defeat to Real Madrid.

French striker Karim Benzema scored a hat-trick at Stamford Bridge to help Real Madrid to a 3-1 victory in the first leg of their Champions League quarter final clash against Chelsea.

The result leaves Chelsea’s Champions League campaign hanging by a thread and needing a magical night in Madrid if they are to progress to the next stage.

Chelsea had not lost a home game in the Champions League this season, but essentially gifted red-hot Karim Benzeme a hat-trick and now have a mountain to climb.

The defeat to Spanish giants follows a surprise 4-1 loss to Brentford in the league and manager Thomas Tuchel will now hope that he can recharge his batteries and get his team ready for what is left of the season.

Going to Madrid and getting a result is not beyond this Chelsea team, but they will have to improve on almost every aspect of their game on the evidence of tonight’s showing.

Heroes

Kai Havertz - The German forward scored in the first half to bring the game back to 2-1 and from there, there were hopes that the Blues could rescue the game before an early Mendy mistake in the second half took the sting out of the game.

Villains

Edouard Mendy - Literally gifted Benzema his third goal with almost the first touch of the second half. Really needs to work on his footwork if he is really get to the very top of his game.

Thiago Silva - Lost Benzema for the second goal and just struggled to keep up with the skill and movement of the silky French forward.

Kante - By his own high standards this was a poor game for the often unbeatable French midfielder.

Here is how we rated all the other players from Stamford Bridge: