Chelsea’s Champions League hopes were ended by Paris St-Germain at the last-16 stage once more as Zlatan Ibrahimovic inspired the French champions to victory at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
PSG built on their 2-1 lead from the first leg when Ibrahimovic crossed perfectly for Adrien Rabiot to score from close range after 16 minutes.<\/p>\n
Diego Costa’s smart finish put Chelsea level on the night before half-time, but his departure through injury on the hour and Ibrahimovic’s simple finish from Angel di Maria’s delivery seven minutes later sent PSG into the last eight.<\/p>\n
The visitors, who knocked Chelsea out on away goals at this stage last season, ended the night in total control.<\/p>\n
Chelsea – 10th in the Premier League – now face the prospect of being without European football next season, with Costa and Eden Hazard limping off injured before Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final at Everton.<\/p>\n
Abramovich on unfamiliar ground<\/strong><\/p>\n Roman Abramovich took control of Chelsea in July 2003 – two months after a final-day victory over Liverpool secured a place in the Champions League.<\/p>\n Since then, the Blues’ Russian owner has never been deprived of a place in Europe’s elite competition – the title he made his priority before finally winning it against Bayern Munich on penalties in their own Allianz Arena in 2012.<\/p>\n Now, barring the most unlikely circumstances, it will be Europa League at best next season as they are currently 10 points off fourth-placed Manchester City, having played a game more.<\/p>\n It means when Abramovich appoints his next manager, which looks increasingly likely to be Italy coach Antonio Conte, it will be a rebuilding job with Chelsea on the outside of Europe’s top table looking in.<\/p>\n Chelsea’s new man can expect heavy financial backing after two successive exits at the last-16 stage, followed by the ignominy of not qualifying at all.<\/p>\n With captain John Terry looking likely to leave and new faces brought in, the summer could signal a fresh start for the Abramovich era after this defeat.<\/p>\n Costa’s absence a body blow<\/strong><\/p>\n PSG’s Twitter account created plenty of pre-match headlines by mischievously labelling Chelsea striker Costa a “fraud”.<\/p>\n It may have been an attempt to get under the combustible Brazil international’s skin – but it did anything but as he looked the real deal before he succumbed to injury on the hour.<\/p>\n The 27-year-old was a threat throughout, bringing a fine early save from PSG keeper Kevin Trapp and scoring the goal that gave Chelsea some hope before Ibrahimovic snuffed it out and was a threat all night.<\/p>\n As Chelsea regroup and try to salvage something from the chaos of a season that saw Jose Mourinho sacked as manager seven months after winning the Premier League title, the sight of Costa collapsing to the floor before being helped off is a serious worry for interim boss Guus Hiddink.<\/p>\n Costa’s departure, quickly followed by Ibrahimovic’s close-range strike, was the death knell for Chelsea.<\/p>\n They now have a vital FA Cup tie at Everton on Saturday and this is now the only trophy in their sights.<\/p>\n If Chelsea are to fashion success from this campaign, they will need Costa available for as many games as possible.<\/p>\n PSG show changing of the guard?<\/strong><\/p>\n PSG’s second successive Champions League win over Chelsea offers further evidence of a new order in European football – one which the reigning Premier League champions are not currently part of.<\/p>\n When PSG were bought by Qatari owners in 2011, the Stamford Bridge club represented the model they would have had in mind as they mapped out their plans for supremacy.<\/p>\n Champions League results in recent seasons suggest they have achieved the goal of overtaking Chelsea. They lost to the Blues on away goals in the 2014 quarter-final but reversed the result at the last-16 stage last season.<\/p>\n Now this repeat result has left Chelsea playing catch-up as PSG look to build on their power base. Chelsea’s Champions League hopes were ended by Paris St-Germain at the last-16 stage once more as Zlatan Ibrahimovic inspired the French champions to victory at Stamford Bridge. PSG built on their 2-1 lead from the first leg when Ibrahimovic crossed perfectly for Adrien Rabiot to score from close range after 16 minutes. Diego Costa’s smart […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"