Frank Lampard stuck such a maudlin note - "We're not as good as we used to be" - that the mind immediately filled with Barbra Streisand's The Way We Were, with its pained call: "If we had the chance to do it all again, tell me - would we, could we?"The beauty of sport is that it offers rolling shots at redemption. But that possibility was closed to Lampard in Lisbon last night when Roberto Di Matteo started with him on the bench for this Champions League quarter-final first-leg, along with Didier Drogba and Michael Essien, fellow warhorses from Chelsea's greatest era.Lampard made the admission at the weekend on Chelsea TV, which was like telling Pravda the Soviet system was one big road to nowhere. The most influential midfielder in Chelsea's Premier League history was simply setting out easily demonstrable facts - yet the words must have arrived with a clunk for owner Roman Abramovich, whose message to the elite coaches of Europe is: 'Could anyone I've not yet hired and fired take a step forward." The omission of Lampard, Essien and Drogba probably owed more to fatigue and the need for speed against Benfica than oligarchichal revenge, but yet again we were reminded that no Chelsea team-sheet can drop without an accompanying hum of intrigue. Often, selection is more interesting than their play. Which is part of their problem. They need managerial autonomy, obedience and clear lines of command. Lampard's observation was not about politics but quality. With Salomon Kalou's 75th-minute goal they maintained their reputation for defiance on Europe's grandest stage. Nobody disputes, though, that Chelsea have regressed. They are way off the peaks of the Jose Mourinho years and the 2008 Champions League final appearance in Moscow. As Streisand sang: "Can it be that it was all so simple then, or has time rewritten every line?"The best XI of the Abramovich years would contain several from last night's squad: Lampard, John Terry, Petr Cech, Drogba and arguably Paulo Ferreira at right-back, for his sterling work in Mourinho's title winning sides. But Ferreira, who is way past his prime, is still out there: the go-to right-sided defender for a huge match in which the consistently mediocre John Obi Mikel, and Raul Meireles, were the two central midfielders.It is in this crucial area that Chelsea's fans generally realistic fans would have most to grumble about. With Salomon Kalou pulling the play left, and Ramires hugging the right, a central pairing of Mikel and Meireles bears no comparison to the great Chelsea engine rooms of Lampard, Essien (in his pomp) and Claude Makelele.A pre-match game of pick the best Abramovich-era XI brought votes for Ricardo Carvalho, William Gallas, Arjen Robben, Joe Cole, Michael Ballack and Eidur Gudjohnsen: all no longer present. In other words - it generated nostalgia for better players than Chelsea currently possess. This was Lampard's point. And the proof is in the Premier League table. The one signing Chelsea could parade before their major rivals as a top acquisition is Juan Mata, who runs the subtlety department all alone and was deployed in vast tracts of space here behind Fernando Torres.Still: a virtue of extreme wealth is that it allows the richest owners to rip it up and start again. Less well endowed teams are lumbered with their errors, as Liverpool are finding out. Already we see that the escapology against Napoli as not indicative of a major revival. The subsequent defeat at Manchester City was a more accurate measure of their standing. While the old guard cling to their jobs, the new wave endeavour to prove they are the right people to begin afresh. With Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United all gone, the Champions League offers morale-boosting opportunities while Abramovich lines up his next manager and contemplates another splurge on stars in the pounds 30?million-plus bracket.Waiting down Europe's track are Lionel Messi and Barcelona, who would not need the hallucinogenic refereeing of Tom Henning Ovrebo to beat this Chelsea side. The sense is of a club waiting for the next big thing to happen and trying to look busy while Abramovich decides what it should be. In the marvelous Stadium of Light, with its resident eagles and half-time ritual of paper-aeroplane launching, Torres combined positional sharpness with blunt finishing and Ramires did his best to impersonate a right-winger before naturally drifting back inside. At the back, David Luiz was back on the turf where his suave defending persuaded Chelsea to pay pounds 23?million for him and John Terry, who is ignoring his injuries, slugged it out with "scar Cardozo. Brisk attacking by Benfica after the interval jabbed Chelsea out of their languid tempo and Mata almost scored on the hour mark after surging round Artur in the Benfica goal but struck the goalkeeper's right-hand post. This game looked every inch a sideshow to this year's main Champions League action. It was almost inconceivable that the eventual winner was on show in this eagle's lair. On 67 minutes, after Jardel had drawn a fine save from Cech, Meireles gave way to Lampard: a reassuring sight for the wedge of Chelsea supporters whose hopes seldom rose above a respectable scoreline here. In their flux, the world's best club competition still offers salvation for the least impressive Chelsea side of the Abramovich era.The impetus will still have to come from Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Ashley Cole and Essien, who remain the club's biggest assets, along with Mata. Torres can still join the hardcore. His breakaway on the right and cross to Kalou on 75 minutes broke the deadlock and punished Benfica for their wastefulness. If anyone knows the words to The Way We Were, it must be Torres.

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