Chelsea 1 Aston Villa 0: After Sven-Goran Eriksson took his seat at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea's so-called manager-in-waiting must have felt he was watching something terribly familiar: a team struggling to overcome supposedly inferior opposition; one whose individual parts refused to justify high reputations; and, in the end, victory laced with the luck that is the Swede's companion.
The only Eriksson-esque ingredient missing was a major second-half improvement but, as Chelsea had already inflicted the critical damage through the predatory Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, the agenda was different. A brief chant of "We don't need Eriksson" in one corner was curiously timed since at this point, just before the hour, Claudio Ranieri's team were fumbling and getting worse.
Three puzzling Ranieri substitutions, a second shocking miss by Juan Pablo Angel and an injury-time dogfight later Chelsea got away with it. Ranieri admitted so. "It's true," he replied when confronted by David O'Leary's assertion that the winners were "the luckiest team in the world today".
Ranieri, it is widely alleged, must win the Premiership or the Champions League to survive. His chances will be better assessed in a month's time, after they have visited Birmingham and Arsenal, and entertained Lazio. The omens for that triple test were not good here, even if Villa's strategy was astute and they showed few symptoms of their chronic travel sickness.
As a result Ranieri was interrogated about his selection - he made five changes from the 5-0 destruction of Wolves - and, more pointedly, the value of Juan Sebastian Veron. Chelsea's manager has called him "the best midfielder in the world" but, there again, Alex Ferguson not long ago bestowed similar praise on the Argentinian.
The question was more pertinent for the loud cheers that greeted Joe Cole's latest late fling, this one at Veron's expense. "Of course, Cole is, how you say, the apple of their eyes," observed the Italian.
Perhaps Ranieri cannot accommodate too many free spirits at one time because, as he conceded, Veron enjoys rare luxury in his team. "He can find the position which is the best for him," said Ranieri. "He played very well today, and his team-mates played a lot of the ball to him. But sometimes we forget (Damien) Duff."
Is Veron the only player to be granted such freedom? "Yes - for the moment."
It remains clear the Argentinian - an Eriksson favourite - has an imagination and range of passing rarely found in the Premiership. Save for the odd dink forward by Emmanuel Petit, making an impressive contribution, the fare provided by Chelsea's midfielders was as predictable as most English clubs.
Credit must go to O'Leary, using a five-man midfield in which Lee Hendrie excelled, for making Chelsea look ordinary and, in the closing minutes, nothing short of desperate. Even in defeat O'Leary thought he had pulled one over Chelsea's arch tactician. "They had to adjust their tactics to cope with ours in the second half."
The outcome turned on Angel's goal stream drying up and Hasselbaink's still flowing. The Dutchman was on hand to convert the rebound from Frank Lampard's cross-shot while the Colombian twice missed excruciatingly, after Lampard's dreadful back-pass and Gavin McCann's sideways ball. The second came on 89th minutes and there was time for the latest goalkeeper's sortie, Thomas Sorensen almost converting a corner.
