Chelsea go through - but with no flair and no goals

Chelsea 0 Copenhagen 0. Chelsea won 2-0 on aggregate to join Tottenham and Manchester United in tomorrow’s draw for the quarter-final of the Champions League. But the Blues look far from being a team capable of lifting the trophy in May.

Against the weakest side in the last 16, Chelsea failed to find the net in front of just 36,454 fans - their lowest crowd of the season - and manager Carlo Ancelotti wasn’t happy. “We have to improve, we had so many chances to score,” he fumed. “We must score when we need to. We need to be more precise in front of goal. The general performance was good. We shot 24 times at goal - so what more could we do?”

It was another fruitless night for Fernando Torres, Chelsea’s £50m signing, who has now failed to score in six games since arriving from Liverpool nearly two months ago. The Spanish striker started the evening on the bench before replacing Nicolas Anelka on 68 minutes, but once again the Spaniard looked off the pace.

Asked afterwards if he was beginning to lose faith in his new signing, Ancelotti replied testily: "I decide my strikers game by game and who is fit. We have a fantastic squad. The players not involved from the beginning tonight will play on Sunday [against Manchester City in the Premier League]...Torres played well. He wanted to score and had some opportunities, some good movement."

With his boss Roman Abramovich publicly backing Torres and saying he can have all the time he needs to settle in at the Bridge, Ancelotti can hardly say anything else.

Chelsea had a hatful of opportunities to take the lead in the first-half against a Copenhagen side playing in pink shirts, but the west London side lacked focus in front of goal with Yuri Zhirkov, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba all squandering decent chances. The best the Danes could offer was a free-kick from Dame N'Doye that rattled the upright of Petr Cech’s goal.

The second half followed a similar pattern to the first with John Obi Mikel and Nicolas Anelka fluffing their lines in front of goal and the introduction of Torres 22 minutes from time failing to rouse the game from its slumber.

In the evening’s other Champions League tie, Real Madrid made short work of French outfit Lyon, the Spanish side cruising to a 3-0 victory at the Bernabeu. Goals from Marcelo, Karim Benzema and Angel Di Maria gave Real a 4-1 aggregate win and ensured their passage to the last eight of the competition for the first time since 2004.

“I'm relaxed rather than euphoric because for me this is normal,” said Real coach Jose Mourinho later. “Madrid is too big a club not to be there.”

On the subject of who he’d like to meet in the quarter-finals, Mourinho replied: “I would prefer to avoid Inter and Chelsea because emotionally it's difficult to play against your people, your friends. But if it has to be it will be.”

The eight qualifiers for tomorrow’s quarter-final draw are: Chelsea, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, Barcelona, Manchester United, Schalke 04 and Shakhtar Donetsk. ·