Chelsea chaos theory delivers another trophy chance as latest mini managerial era begins | Jonathan Wilson

Out of chaos comes trophies. It shouldn’t be so, but it’s been the Chelsea way for more than 20 years now: no matter how shambolic everything seems behind the scenes, no matter how many managers they burn through, no matter how scattergun the transfer policy, no matter how much discontent seeps from the dressing room, somehow they spend enough to keep on winning trophies.

Since Roman Abramovich took over the club in 2003, Chelsea have had 20 permanent managers (including two longish-term interims, and three who had two stints in charge) and won 20 trophies (Community Shields and Uefa Super Cups excluded). That is a bizarre statistic: almost a manager a season should not also be bringing in almost a trophy a season. Whether Calum McFarlane’s appointment to see them through to the end of the season after the sacking of Liam Rosenior last week is enough for him to be considered a 21st manager is debatable, but he now stands one game from adding a 21st trophy.

This was not a great performance from Chelsea; nobody will be sitting awestruck thinking McFarlane deserves the job full-time on the back of this. It wasn’t even really a good performance. It was disjointed and bitty in a game that never developed any sort of rhythm. But there was a fight and a resilience and less of a sense of disillusioned resignation, and that definitely represents a step in the right direction.

One thing hadn’t changed from what already feels like the inexplicable Rosenior interlude. Chelsea still huddled in the centre-circle before kick-off, although without using either the ball or a passing referee as a prop. A degree of self-destructiveness remained as well, and had Robert Sánchez not got his foot to Brenden Aaronson’s 15th-minute effort, all the talk would have been of the cheapness with which possession was squandered and Tosin Adarabioyo’s weird misjudgement that yielded the chance.

But other things felt very different. There was a fine goalkeeping performance from Sánchez, his reflex save from Joe Rodon of particular note; Chelsea’s best days tend to come when he is having a good day, as he did in the Club World Cup final. But those days have never quite been consistent enough to convince at Chelsea, and less than stellar goalkeeping, not only from Sánchez, has been a feature of this season.

There was even, thrillingly, a goal, Chelsea’s first against Premier League opposition since they , nearly eight weeks ago in bald chronology but a lifetime in terms of the history of the club, the lifespan of a Chelsea manager being admittedly brief. And of course, given football’s habit of underlining narrative tropes, it came from Enzo Fernández, whose suspension after acknowledging he wouldn’t mind living in Madrid seemed to be what brought the recent crisis to a head, even if Rosenior probably wasn’t the one who wanted the ban.