Chelsea have a lot of work to do behind the scenes following their dismal 3-1 loss to Flamengo in the Club World Cup.
The Blues led through Pedro Neto at the break but capitulated in the second half as the Brazilian giants turned the game around.
To make things worse for Chelsea, Nicolas Jackson delivered arguably the worst substitute appearance since Steven Gerrard against Manchester United in 2015.
Jackson came on in the second half and was deservedly sent off four minutes into his stint for a reckless challenge on Ayrton Lucas.
Chelsea legend Mikel John Obi was not impressed as he named one thing in particular that the Blues are currently lacking.
Chelsea players dejected during Club World Cup game with Flamengo
Photo by Image Photo Agency/Getty Images
Mikel John Obi says Chelsea lack leaders at present
Mikel, speaking on DAZN, criticised a number of players on the day, with Jackson and Robert Sanchez both drawing Mikel’s ire.
However, the Chelsea icon also said there was one issue which related to the whole team – namely that they lack leaders.
“When you talk about leaders, people that can be on the pitch and control the game and their team-mates,” Mikel said, as per BBC Sport.
“That is what Chelsea had when the likes of John Terry and Didier Drogba were at the club.
“People who can call the players around and say, ‘Listen, let’s calm down a bit’.
“I don’t see that here, I don’t see leaders. I just see players making mistakes.
“Then Nicolas Jackson comes in and gets the red card. It just went from bad to worse.”
Regarding Chelsea’s performance on the day, Mikel said: “Flamengo from the start of the game they were the much better side.
“They controlled the game, played well, with tempo, they were aggressive. They were first to every ball and outplayed Chelsea from the very start.”
READ MORE: £31m Chelsea player slated by media alongside Nicolas Jackson after Flamengo loss, ‘really tricky afternoon’ for him
What Jorginho made of Flamengo’s win over Chelsea
Chelsea had a reunion with Jorginho, who is now playing with Flamengo after leaving Arsenal at the end of last season.
The Italy international, speaking after the game, said Flamengo did a lot of work on Chelsea and were great in exploiting their weak points.
“I think it says it all,” said Jorginho. “For the game and how it was, we played good football and did really well on the pitch.
“When we had to wait, we waited. When we had to press, we put them in trouble. We worked a lot on how we could hurt them, we believe in what we do and we push all together.”
On the half time message, Jorginho said: “We were really confident and we know in these big games the details make the difference.
“Overall we were really good in the first half so we said, “let’s keep pushing.”
“We pushed in the first half and it worked so we knew we needed to do more in the second half and that is what we did. We found the little spots that could hurt them.”
How Chelsea could do with a player like Jorginho now.