Owen Hargreaves tore Chelsea’s recruitment model to shreds after the Blues were dumped out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain.
Liam Rosenior’s side needed a miraculous comeback after losing 5-2 in the primary leg in Paris, but as an alternative went further behind when Khvicha Kvaratskhelia scored after just six minutes.
Bradley Barcola doubled the lead on the night just eight minutes later with an outstanding finish before Senny Mayulu rounded out an 8-2 aggregate win for the Parisiens with a second-half strike off the bench.
Chelsea are the youngest side on this season’s competition, and their inexperience showed across the 2 legs against the defending champions.
And two-time winner Hargreaves believes the club needs to usher in some much-needed experience to their squad in the event that they are to ever truly contend for major silverware.
‘They already had a culture, this club have won things ceaselessly under different managers, different regimes, different players,’ Hargreaves told TNT Sports post-match.
‘And so they’ve won the most important trophies – Premier Leagues, Champions Leagues – not Club World Cups or something smaller.
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‘This club should wish to win the most important trophies. The Premier Leagues and the Champions Leagues. Right away, they’re miles off it.
‘They’ve signed some good young players, but right away they’ve got too many young players.’
He continued: ‘They need experienced players. All these great Chelsea teams have had world class experienced players – John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Makelele, Essien.’
‘It’s great to have these young kids, but it’s good to have experience. The fellows who own this club, and buy these players they’ve to know that.
‘You’ll be able to’t have three academy kids in a back 4 against the European champions. It’s unattainable, it’s never going to work. 8-2 over two legs. It’s an excessive amount of.’
Reflecting on side’s painful exit, Rosenior added: ‘Six minutes in and one other mistake that we make, it takes the wind out of our sails. I feel the second goal he’s hit from 25 yards in the highest corner.
‘While you go two goals down so early and five goals down on aggregate, it’s a extremely, really difficult evening.
‘We desired to obviously put up more of a fight than what we did. Credit to PSG. Their possession play was really, really top in the sport and over the 2 legs they should undergo.
‘Two and 1 / 4 games ago, we were away in Paris or coming off the back of Aston Villa, a superb performance. 2-2 in the sport, but we don’t care for the moments, we switch off.
‘What I actually have to do is ensure that that we get that back on target and that comes from not making mistakes or errors.
‘That’s something that me and my staff have already spoken about now, but that’s something that I’ll discuss tomorrow and ensure that that we go into the Everton game in a extremely positive state of mind.’
Chelsea will look to get back to winning ways on the weekend after they travel to face Everton within the Premier League.
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