So when push came to shove, when it came down to the ability of his side to score the goals that would guarantee him a welcome on the King's Road for the rest of his life, Claudio Ranieri chose to start the match with two strikers whose allegiance to Chelsea FC predates the arrival not only of Roman Abramovich but of Ranieri himself.
It had been assumed that Hernan Crespo would start last night. The Argentinian, after all, has a reputation as a man for the big occasion. This time, however, Ranieri put his faith in two men brought to west London by his predecessor, Gianluca Vialli.
The inclusion of Eidur Gudjohnsen was hardly a surprise. The Icelander has been Chelsea's most consistent all-round forward this season, but when it came to choosing his partner, Ranieri evidently listened to the pleas of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, whose 17 goals in 43 appearances before last night made him the club's top scorer.
Evidently putting his faith in the established familiarity between the two, the manager chose to ignore the evidence of the first leg in the Stade Louis II, when Crespo opened the scoring for Chelsea while Hasselbaink, after coming on as a substitute, failed to convert several chances and looked to have forgotten how to play a decent pass.
In the very first minute last night the Dutchman appeared to be restarting where he left off two weeks earlier when he collected Julien Rodriguez's clearance just outside the Monaco area and hit a weak shot that Flavio Roma saved easily.
When Chelsea scored their opening goal, after 21 minutes, neither of the strikers was involved. Instead Jesper Gronkjaer turned inside on the right and expertly floated the ball over Roma's head, into the top corner.
Gudjohnsen then met Mario Melchiot's pass with an angled foot that sent the ball to Frank Lampard, whose first-time shot gave Chelsea the scoreline that, had they been able to preserve it, would have guaranteed them a trip to Gelsenkirchen.
They had done more than enough to justify the margin, but the fatal slackness which allowed Monaco back into the tie in first-half stoppage time indicated that the lessons of the first match had not been absorbed. When Jerome Rothen skinned Melchiot down the left, it was a replay of the sort of failure that cost them in the away leg. Fernando Morientes had time and space for his header, which came back off the post and was bundled home by Hugo Ibarra.
And then came Morientes' beautiful equaliser, the product of a move involving Rothen, Patrice Evra and Bernardi. It was orchestrated from beginning to end by the Spaniard, who may not have been able to retain his place among the galacticos but whose recent deeds will assure him of a permanent place in Monaco's firmament.
