Chelsea may not be able to claim it was fully deserved, but in stealing a draw in stoppage time from what was, in large part, a 97-minute onslaught from Manchester City, they had reward for their dogged determination and hard graft.
Enzo Fernandez won’t have believed his luck when the ball popped back out to him and he was handed a second bite at the cherry to scrape past Gianluigi Donnarumma.
When he did, it set off bedlam in the away end. Just four days into 2026, Chelsea have already lost their manager, Enzo Maresca, and are moving swiftly to replace him - most likely with Liam Rosenior - and here was another twist in the tale.
Calum McFarlane, their caretaker boss, was left punching the air as Fernandez wheeled away, and Chelsea held on.
Managerial mismatch
For many of their meetings during Pep Guardiola’s almost 10-year reign at City, Chelsea have been marginal underdogs. Heading into this one, the same description would have served as a considerable understatement.
As Guardiola took charge of the 1,012th match of his managerial career, Chelsea’s McFarlane took to the dugout for his first at senior level.
Seven months ago, he was a youth-team coach at Southampton. Before kick-off, it was being labelled as the greatest managerial mismatch in Premier League history - and it was hard not to feel that summary was fair.
But McFarlane held his own, just as Chelsea did. They climbed back above Manchester United into fifth place as a result of their draw.
Odds stacked against Chelsea
Even aside from the fact they are in the midst of a managerial switch, Chelsea’s tough ask of getting something from the game grew tougher still.
That they should have also lost first-choice goalkeeper Robert Sanchez to a small muscle injury and Wesley Fofana to illness in the lead-up to the game - with Marc Cucurella not ready to return from his hamstring injury - only made matters worse and the picture bleaker.
But this gave their fans who had braved the trip up to the icy north all the more reason to get lost in the ecstasy once Fernandez nicked Chelsea their draw.
Chelsea show fighting spirit to next boss
Maresca was always the first to chip in and remind people that he was in charge of the youngest squad in the Premier League, but Chelsea’s youth and relative inexperience does not mean they are not battle-hardened or hard-working.
Their display at the Etihad showed they are both. They fought fiercely and left the City faces looking dejected at the end as they outlasted their hosts despite soaking up such pressure throughout.
Chelsea’s next head coach will be accepting a challenging job at a club that cannot seem to shake its ‘basket-case’ tag for good - but they will also be inheriting a very talented group of young players.
Among them, Fernandez, Reece James, Pedro Neto, and plenty of others possess the hunger to go toe to toe with the best sides, head coach in place or not.
