A goal to win the game, perhaps to preserve Jose Mourinho as Chelsea manager. There were seven minutes remaining when the Brazilian midfielder stood over a free-kick, some 25 yards from goal on the left. Aleksandar Dragovic had equalised for Dynamo Kiev five minutes earlier and Mourinho, on the sidelines, looked increasingly like a man whose race was run.
He had introduced Eden Hazard, the player whose loss of from is most startling this season, from the substitutes bench, but few were optimistic. This is a team, and a manager, desperately short of magic dust right now. Then Hazard won the free-kick. Then Willian stepped up. At least someone in the dressing-room loves him.
Willian, Chelsea's own Duracell bunny. Never stops running, except to get his range. At which point, look out. Willian curled the ball up and over the wall and past goalkeeper Olexandr Shovkovskiy. The turning point? Mourinho will hope so.
'Stand up for the Special One,' the crowd sang. Mourinho punched his chest and raised a hand in salute. He looked genuinely humbled.
Yet it was heart-stoppingly close. Throughout Chelsea's crisis the one man who has not been blamed is goalkeeper Asmir Begovic. Thibaut Courtois has been injured, but not missed. Petr Cech has been sold, but not mourned. No blame can be attached to the stand-in. If anything, it could have been worse.
But catastrophe creates collateral damage, and on Wednesday night Begovic was briefly claimed. It was his error, colliding with Nemanja Matic while trying to field a corner, that gifted Dynamo Kiev an equaliser with 12 minutes remaining. Mourinho grimaced in pain. He has said that no mistake is going unpunished in this slump, and that looked the case here. Chelsea were the better team, but by God, they were made to sweat.
Still, Mourinho will feel he has dodged a bullet, maybe even the bullet. It is the Champions League that tends to do for Chelsea managers. But not him. Not yet. Victory came by a slender margin but it puts Chelsea on the brink of the tournament's last 16. A win in Israel against Maccabi Tel-Aviv later this month should do it. Where will Chelsea and Mourinho be by then? Still in recovery, one imagines.
This was a nervy, unconvincing display. Chelsea the better team, but never safe, in charge but not in control. They had some good chances but lack the certainty of old. This is a team that is being challenged in ways it never expected. Mourinho still has the love of the common people but looks beleaguered on the sidelines. They chant his name, he gives a little wave of appreciation, as if thankful some still believe.
His players toil and sweat to the game's conclusion. When Dyanmo Kiev attacked there was a feeling of dread, as if disaster could strike at any moment. It nearly did earlier. Kurt Zouma made a brilliant tackle on Artem Kravets to save the day and Begovic made a couple of fine saves.
At the other end, Chelsea have lost their mojo. They saw lots of the ball but forced few saves from Kiev goalkeeper Shovkovskiy. The one of note came from Oscar after 65 minutes, brilliant and one-handed. It was a rare strike on target. Even Chelsea's first goal came courtesy of an opponent.
Mourinho at least had the good grace to look a tad sheepish as the fans sung his name. Chelsea's opener wasn't, after all, one off the training ground. Aleksandar Dragovic, the Kiev centre-back, succeeded where Chelsea's forwards had singularly failed in the first-half. Here, at last, was a player willing to have a go in front of goal. A pity it was his own net that was the target.
The impressive Baba Rahman had switched the play, left to right, to find Willian on an overlap. His cross was dangerous, but to no-one in particular, although Dragovic did not know that. Fearing a Chelsea forward breathing down his neck, he dived and diverted his header past Shovkovskiy. Is this the moment Chelsea’s luck changed? They’ll need to play with more assurance than this if they are to turn this campaign around.
Until that point it was almost like watching a rerun of Manchester United’s match from Tuesday night. Plenty of possession, plenty of pressure, but an absence of quality in the area that matters most. Mourinho looked as frustrated as the locals at times. He turned to his coaches, bemoaning the absence of a striker at a vital moment, or a poor final ball.
Chelsea with their gander up would have had this game closed out by half-time, but it is a different team this season. Where negative tactics are being blamed for United’s failings in front of goal, Chelsea appear straight up short of confidence. Diego Costa, never averse to beating up a back four, looks like a bully on the end of an unexpected slap. He has lost that swagger, the willingness to take the game on. At no moment was this more apparent than the penalty incident in first-half injury time.
Put clear by Cesc Fabregas, Costa got the advantage over two chasing Kiev defenders but seemed strangely reluctant to pull the trigger. Inwardly, Stamford Bridge was pleading with him to shoot, but Costa seemed to want more. The penalty. It seemed an abdication of responsibility. Feeling the merest touch from Dragovic – and certainly not a foul – he threw himself forward, theatrically. This final exaggeration lost the case. Referee Pavel Kralovec rightly waved play on, much to Costa and Mourinho’s consternation. John Terry was still pleading a fruitless case when the whistle blew for half-time. He will regret that when he sees the replay. The contact was insufficient to justify a fall. Costa should have shot. Instead of more histrionics or another declaration of war on official incompetence, Mourinho should ask the player why he did not.
It wasn’t the only incident of its type. Oscar and Fabregas got into good positions, without taking the initiative and it made for a hugely frustrating evening. Chelsea are not in the sort of form that affords comfort in a 1-0 lead. Yet Chelsea’s forwards are unlikely to give them breathing space right now.
For all their possession, real chances were rare: an Oscar shot on the turn from a Cesar Azpilicueta cross after eight minutes, a Fabregas effort from distance in the final minute of the half. The best of it in the first-half came after 35 minutes when an Azpilicueta cross was headed clear with Oscar making the aerial challenge. The ball fell to Costa who sent it into orbit.
After half-time, Costa found Willian at the near post, whose header from close range was smartly mopped up by Shovkovskiy. On the bench, Mourinho took a huge swig from a bottle and scowled. It was Chelsea, but not as he knew it, and recovery from this point is going to take time, it seems.
